coming soon - again and again and again...

[cinemabon]

Here’s the lineup this summer:

Batman – oh, no, not again
Spiderman – what number should we use this time
Superman – let’s fly it into the ground
James Bond – we’ll ride this pony to death
Shrek – the fat man can’t act, but who cares
Harry Potter – please fly away
Star Wars – another jedi is born
Star Trek – beyond space is a big empty room
Halloween – are you scared yet?
Friday the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, ad infinitum
X-men – we should be X-rated

Remake central… guaranteed to rehash old 1950’s movies into money-making games for corporations

War of the worlds (three versions)
Journey to the center of the Earth (five versions)
The day the Earth stood still (two versions)
Forbidden Planet (two versions)
Clash of the Titans (three versions)
Robin Hood (at least a dozen versions!)

Comedy

Let’s have a bunch of teenagers-guys in their twenties-women in their twenties-nerds-druggies-housewives-middle aged married men… make jokes about masturbation, semen, feces, urine, belching, women’s breasts, men’s penises, homosexuals, lesbians, and don’t forget flatus. Now lets put them in college, put them in high school, put them in the prom, put them in Vegas, put them on the road (in the south, in the west, in the Midwest, in Europe, in Africa, in the jungle). Let the cute girl reject the cute guy only to end up with him in the end and have everyone smile. Gee, we’ve never seen that one.

Drama

Let’s have some cops/spies/bad guys/good guys/drug dealers/dope fiends/innocent people chase/be chased after some people around city/country/mountainous/beach/highway streets in some fast cars and blow things up. Make the explosions massive… the bigger the better, with more gasoline than we’ve ever seen ignited in one bomb. Cool. We’ve never seen that one.

How about a movie about... a bad marriage, a prostitute, a drug addict, an innocent girl gone bad, a cheating husband/wife, the slums of (insert name of city), the life of a poor person, the life of an abused person, the life of an abused son/daughter/child/wife/cousin... how about a story about a bunch of young people that no one cares about in some city in another land... shot with bad jerky hand held camera made to look realistic by being shot on location with real people and not actors... in other words, on a low low low budget... but its art, right?

Horror

No wait. There are no more surprises in horror movies. They've all been done to death (every holiday debunked, every situation taken to extreme, every monster exploited, every vampire done to death) and every thing except Jesus has been made into a horror movie... no, I spoke too soon. It's mad Jesus, out to slay anyone who's not a Christian... you say Jesus was a rabbi? Impossible!

Epic

(see horror)

Musical

(died with the dinosaurs)

Western

(a what?)

Gangsta

(See the 1930's)

Independent

How many home movie plots can we see before we die of boredom? And please, NO MORE MOVIES ABOUT THE NAZIS!!!!!!

Brought to you by corporate America... Hope you enjoyed the expensive tickets, overpriced stale popcorn, the watered down drinks, the bad seats, the endless commercials before the movie, the rude patrons, and rotten plots. Come again!

The end

[Johann]

No more Nazis?!?!
How on earth would we be able to recognize the villain??

I agree that Shrek can't act. And neither can that Donkey Eddie Murphy- he's swindled many a million, biggest con man in the history of movies.
Bravo on wanting Harry "GAY AS THE SUN SHINES" Potter to go away. I second and third that one..
And I also agree on the riding the pony of 007 to death.
Maybe Batman and Superman deserve better, but they should still make the movies..
X-Men? Blah.
Star Trek? RUN! RUN FAR AWAY!
Star Wars? What happened?
Remakes?
Make 'em KILLER or don't fuckin' bother!

The horror genre is suffering the most. But if you want to see a truly horrifying recent film, watch "SCARCE"- that movie gave me the willies.

Thanks for the observations cinemabon.

[cinemabon]

The world is filled with so many good writers out there who bust their ass every day and get no recognition because Stephen King or some other damn author that doesn't need another dime shoves them out of the way. The same is true with film. Let's have some originality for a change instead of running sequels over and over and over and over and over... you get the point.

[oscar jubis]

Love this opinionated thread.
I find the horror genre particularly interesting to discuss in the context provided by cinemabon. There is no more sure fire way of making a profit in the movie business (it is business we are talking about right now, not art) than producing a horror flick. Teenagers will flock to them and virtually guarantee a $20 million opening weekend. They don't care that it's a sequel or a prequel or that it has been done before, over and over like bon says. All they seem to care is that the movie is crude and gory and features hot-looking young characters.

I have conflicted opinions about bon's calling for a stop to "movies about the Nazis". I am not exactly sure what you include as "about Nazis". Most movies with Nazis on them are mostly about their victims...

[cinemabon]

Oh, believe me, Oscar, the last thing I want to encourage is a holocaust denier (is denier a word?). I just mean that it's become a device of convience to make the villain a Nazi. They were despicable... but oh, how the movies have dragged that dead horse around town (since 1940... I think we got the point... Nazi's=bad guy).

This post is more for fun and a poke-in-the-eye beef against an industry that all of us on this site whole heartedly support with our paychecks (monthly, weekly, daily, hourly). Movies are our whore. We pay for them dearly to obtain what life will not suffice - entertainment. What would we do without them?

So bring it on... let's bitch it up a little. You can do that here... it is permitted. Of course out there, we're all butch, right? (Tongue in cheek, Oscar, tongue in cheek).

[oscar jubis]

...jokes about masturbation, semen, feces, urine, belching, women’s breasts, men’s penises, homosexuals, lesbians, and don’t forget flatus. Now lets put them in college, put them in high school, put them in the prom, put them in Vegas, put them on the road...
I love this excerpt from your post. Comedy is another genre where the vast majority of films being released are really bad and/or objectionable. The vast majority of these movies are crude or "in bad taste" while simultaneously being conventionally aligned with the status quo or what I like to call the dominant ideology.

I get your point about Nazis and you do have a point (the recent GIRL WITH A DRAGON TATTOO only the latest example of unimaginatively interjecting Nazi villains into a plot for no substantial reason). However, good films dealing with victims of the Nazis continue to be made. There are just so many stories, from so many angles, in several styles. The genre, if we can call it that, has yet to exhaust itself. You also have brilliant oddities like THE WHITE RIBBON (do not miss it, please), a film about the children who would grow up to be Nazis.