Hi kids. Welcome to another exciting edition of the Guide here on IP Movies. Real short one this week, as the transition back to college life has been a lot more…busy than I had expected. But I’m the king of excuses, so this probably comes as no surprise to anyone anyway. “Why do today when you can put off til tomorrow and drink instead” or….something. Something like that.
I’m an Ignorant Jackass….Let me Get Back at you After Vacation
So, given the column I write, sometimes I throw in bits and pieces of real world situations. I did it a lot more a long time ago, and people loved it, but I had cut it out for the time being until I nailed down what this column would be and where it’s going. Well, I made a subject line last week, and one particular reader was not a fan of it. If I may re-post his email:
Mr. Norton,
If you are implying by this e-mail’s subject line, present in your
most recent column, that a natural disaster rocking a city and that city’s
subsequent looting is caused by the current Presidential administration, you sir are the most ignorant jackass on this planet. That is saying a lot, considering the number of college-going buffoons who think they know politics and domestic affairs because their art history professor told them Bush is evil. Who think they know how to run the country because they’ve had “marijuana should be legalized!” discussions over their noonday frappuccino. I should know, having to have to wade through a sea of ignorance on my way to classes daily. If this is what you meant by this
statement, it is YOU who are the symptom of a much larger problem than even a hurricane. If you meant something else, I eagerly await your next column.
-Mike S
I won’t spend too much time on this, but let me clarify. And it’s not even everything that could be said. *Ahem* Mike, I don’t blame the administration for the hurricane. That would be, as you say, ignorant, as it was an unfortunate natural disaster. But, I DO blame them for everything that happened after that hurricane hit. I blame them for the short response time. I blame them for the delay of food and supplies. I blame them for the treatment of the people in the Superdome and the Astrodome. I blame them for the current treatment of people, being ‘detained’ and everything. Our President (A man the people didn’t elect sir, if you recall) had the decency to cut his five week vacation short to show up for a photo-op. The man had a smirk on his face the entire time. There was no compassion. There was no emotion. Nothing. And the reports coming out of N.O. now? Of the treatment of people, of the bungling organization that is FEMA? I hardly think I qualify as an ignorant jackass, when there are politicans, people in charge, going on record saying people in this situation are better off than they were before. Look around the internet for Baraba Bush’s comments, Mike. I’m no jackass, I just make it a point to be caught up on news from all sides, and not just the PR spin the White House likes to put on the situation. And the deeper problem here – the funds cut from the city, the troops pulled and sent halfway across the world – I won’t even go into. The hurricane couldn’t have been prevented, but the aftermath could have been avoided, or at least significantly lessened. No art history professor told me anything, I don’t sit and discuss marijuana over frappuccino, and I sure as hell am not part of any problem bigger than the worst natural disaster in our county’s history. It’s an opinion I have based on the facts I’ve read about and seen.
Thanks for writing and being a reader Mike. Hope that cleared some things up for you.
Movie Review Pimpin
Easy enough this week, as there’s a theme – You want movie reviews, you talk to Scott Sawitz. He’s reviewed El Crimen Perfecto (Decent), Junebug (Good), An Unfinished Life (Perfect), and The Man (Decent). A perfect movie…..with J Lo in it? Wow…
DVD Reviews
Nada this week. Hey, it happens. Sometimes it’s an overflow, sometimes it’s no flow, and a lot of the time there’s a nice middle ground. We’ll see what next week brings.
Columns Too!
We start the column pimpin again with Rob Sutton this week. This weeks Bad Ass-ness focuses on Luc Besson, and as such related productions.
Brendan Campbell gives you the Weekend Box Office Review. And that’s that.
ML Kennedy returns with another week of Contradicting Popular Opinion. I could care less about A Beautiful Mind because I’ve never seen it, but either way he’s got another great column for everyone to check out.
Matt Coates has another Holistic DVD Column this week, where he checks out The Last Waltz and Anchorman. Good times.
Newz…..A format I can’t decide on
Sequel Newz Galore
Mean Girls 2: Lacey Chabert is keen to do a sequel to the surprise hit film. “I would love to do a sequel. I don’t know that there’s much talk about one going around, but I had so much fun doing that, and then we got to go to the MTV Movie Awards and we won for best onscreen team there; that was so exciting.” Chabert even offered up her own possible plot: “The Plastics go to college?”
The X-Files 2: William B.Davis (Cigarette Smoking Man) has hopes for a sequel film “I remember when we talked about it way back, just after the [TV show’s] finale, but what kind of a film could I do?” he laughed. “One of the problems, of course, for me is that I’m very dead. I mean, they demolished me in the finale. I’ve come back from the dead a couple of times, but whether I could come back from that is a little hard to imagine.” One idea that Chris Carter has for the film is a prequel. “His point [however] was that David [Duchovny] and Gillian [Anderson] are getting older, so how far back in time can you go? And now quite a number of years have gone by. So whether the cigarette-smoking man can make a believable appearance other than a ghost, I don’t know … [but] I’d love to do it. It’d be great.”
X-Men 3: According to The XVerse.com, the character of Gambit will not be in the next sequel, as rumoured. “Today, Ralph Winter (one of the film’s producers) confirmed to The Xverse that there is no appearance by Gambit in X-Men 3 — but that it might be included in “the next one”. This indicates that despite any possible plans to end the series with a trilogy, people involved with production are open to future X-sequels.”
Quick Thoughts: Mean Girls was a great movie for what it was, and I have no problem saying that. I loved it. Could they re-capture that magic in a new setting? Sure. It’s possible, but at the same time unlikely. It could be fun, but I have my doubts. X-Files is nothing I’m interested in, and prequel idea at this point is stupid, period. And X-3? X-3 is just doomed. Not to be a pessimist or anything, but that poor film is going to be a travesty of epic proportions.
Spiderman 3 – More Villian Rumors
A truckload of speculation has been going on for months now regarding what characters Topher Grace and Thomas Haden Church are playing in Spidey 3. A couple of major villians had been name dropped, but now apparently it’s all decided on and not quite what everyone expected. According to Freeze Dried Movies, Grace will play the character of ‘Venom’, and Haden Church will be playing ‘Sandman’. Also, quite possibly more interesting than that, James Franco, who plays Harry Osborne in the previous films, will be transforming into Hobgoblin (not the Green Goblin II, as he was in the comics) sometime in the next instalment. Three major villians for Spiderman to fight off? Time will tell
Quick Thoughts: Honestly, I was excited when I read this. Until I realized these rumors have been around since February or so. That being said, let’s briefly discuss them. Some will piss and moan about this, but making Topher Grace Venom is an absolutely awesome idea. Obviously Raimi and crew might be shying a bit away from the source material, and people are going to have to deal. It wouldn’t be the first time (God damn biological webshooters) anyway. If he goes the way I think this could go, making Grace/Venom as the same kind of character as Spiderman, but like an evil mirror way, could be fantastic. If that made sense to anyone, I’m not sure how to word it right now. And I don’t know if he’d go origin story with the suit or what, because he’s changed a lot along the way. Then again, it could be lame too, but I’m of the (Minority?) that loves the Venom character and wants to see him go at it with Spiderman all over the city. Interests me a hell of a lot more than Electro, or Franco going Goblin. There’s conflicting reports all over the place, so nothing is for sure until Sony/Raimi and co make it so. And I trust Raimi, as everyone should. We’ll see.
24 on the Big Screen…..in 2 hours of real time???
Kiefer Sutherland has confirmed there are still plans to take 24 to the big screen, and that he will be back as Jack Bauer. “We have talked about it. Our biggest problem right now is getting the writers to find enough time to write a screenplay. There are certain inherent challenges in trying to make something in real time over a two-hour period that’s going to allow enough to be engaging. I certainly believe that they’re going to accomplish that, but I don’t think that’s going to happen—well, it might happen for next year—for next year’s hiatus. We’re not sure yet, but they have been working on it.”
Quick Thoughts: I love me my 24. Love it. Easily one of the best shows on television right now, and consistently awesome for four seasons now. I will admit, even as a confessed fanboy, that I have some doubts about the big screen transition. The whole premise of the show is to showcase saving the world in twenty-four hours of real time. How do you put real time up on the screen? I mean, it can be done as a two hour thing, but that’s be incredibly hard. And, well, it wouldn’t be “24”. It’d be something like “2.5.” I dunno. The writers are great minus some plot/logic holes, and the cast is pretty stellar, so I’m sure they’ll come up with something my tiny mind isn’t wrapping itself around right now. But really, all they need to do is put Bauer and President Palmer on the screen and I’m there. “Damn it!” Gravitas!!
Superman Budget Could Buy and Sell us All
Bryan Singer, director of “Superman Returns” has admitted that his budget for the film is nearly $250 million. The fifth installment of the Superman series is set to open next June. It stars Brandon Routh as the softspoken, mild-mannered superhero from Kansas, err Krypton.
Quick Thoughts: I’m just going to quote Ryan Closs on this one to end the newz week. “….250 million!? Sweet zombie jesus!”
Fin
Another week of broken content promises, I know. Send me an e-mail about it. Actually, the transition here, the free flowing al…water, and such made it kinda tight, timing wise, this week. Combine that with a small computer virus and it’s bad news. Plus, I’m pretty much stunned into silence at that Superman budget. Just wow. But, hopefully as things calm down the column won’t be a rushed piece of silli-ness. But, then again it’s me so, well, yeah.
Until Next Time…
