who has time to watch these things?
In which I continue to comment on movies I haven't seen.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
This one will go into the unnecessary remake hall of fame. From Johnny Depp's bizarre, cloying take on the character, to that insipid theme music that sounds like a bad cover-band version of the Itchy and Scratchy tune, this has all the makings of a train wreck.
Johnny Depp is such a critic's darling right now, he'll no doubt be highly praised. How long till they sign him up as Rhett Butler? Is the world ready for a "quirky" Rhett Butler?
If they had to remake this, I wish they had gone really far afield and had a totally different set of kids.
Oh well. The original's an Everlasting Gobstopper. It stands up so well that not only could it have been made today, there's no way they could have made the exact same film any better even with today's money and technology -- as we're about to find out. This one can stay in its wrapper as far as I am concerned.
Dukes of Hazzard
God awful. Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott as the Dukes? A blonde Daisy? And why were the scenes I saw taking place in a city?
I guess we're going to find out how much star power Jessica Simpson really has. They should push it back to October. I expect this one to tank.
Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith
Nice to see Georgie finally got to pull out his "Revenge of" title.
I'm still trying to find a widescreen DVD of the second one, er, fifth one before this comes out. (That's right, Star Wars II is the only Star Wars film I didn't see in the theaters during its initial run. That right there should tell you what I think of the current trilogy.) Every place around here (including the libraries, Blockbuster, and Hollywood Video) only carry the full screen version. Grrrrr. I'm not watching full screen Star Wars, dammit!
On the plus side, expectations are so low it shouldn't take much to exceed them. On the minus side, George Lucas still can't figure out how to make a sequel and has shown no signs of having repurchased his soul from the marketing devil.
It'll probably be cool, though, if only from the presence of Darth Vader. Hopefully he'll have some significant screen time. (If he only shows up at the end, we're doomed. I guess I should have read the end of the book while I was at Wal-Mart yesterday, but I really don't want to know ahead of time.) We may even forgive George a little (especially if he'd release the original versions of the films on DVD and stop messing with them. Actually he's already promised to mess with them more. He's converting them all to 3-D and will be releasing the new 3-D versions one a year beginning in 2007. Like an idiot, I'll be lined up with all the other Star Nerds. *SIGH*)
It may depend on how good Fantastic Four is whether this is the top film of the summer or not. I wouldn't be surprised though if this is the second year in history where a Star Wars film is released and doesn't manage to reach number one in the year-end box office tally. (Spiderman beat out the last Star Wars wannabe-epic.)
Oh well, if the movie isn't cool, at least the toys are. Have you seen these things? It's about time we had some cool new Darth Vader stuff to play with!
The best Star Wars movie of the last 23 years? Matrix Revolutions.
Jiminy Glick in La La Wood
Who thought this was such a good idea they financed it? The Short kids should immediately investigate whether or not they have any inheritances left.
I'll be back soon with more "ill informed movie critiques."