Camera Lucida - Is there hope for decent movies coming out soon?

August 18th, 2006 by Atomictumor

Yes, I am totally ripping off good ol’ Joe Powell. If he likes, he can repay the favor by ripping off my style for a few posts, which, I guess, is being egotistical, loud, rambling, and insulting to his commenters. Yeah, that about pegs me.

Anyway, for the past few years, it seems like every time GAC and I have a spare $20 and a night without the kids, we dig around for a movie to see, but theres nothing there worth seeing. How can it be, that 200px-grindhouse.jpgwith dozens of screens in the Knoxville area, they’re all playing crap?

Well, heres hoping that’ll be changing before too long, at least briefly.

First thing I’m squealing about is a collaboration of sorts between Tarantino and Rodriguez, Grindhouse, which looks damn interesting as a return to ’70’s horror/exploitation films. The movie is going to consist of two separate films directed independantly, combined with faux trailers and weirdness in between to bring back the feel of those theaters that I wasn’t alive for myself, but would probably have enjoyed experiencing.
Tarantino’s film, Death Proof, is going to be a zombie movie, while Rodriguez’s part, Planet Terror, looks like its going to be a slasher movie, according to comingsoon.net. Woot. A Tarantino zombie movie. Egad.

GAC and I were going through trailers on apple.com/trailers the other day, and came across Renaissance. The film has some pretty stark black and white animation that just looks freakin’ amazing, and the plot has been likened to a Blade Runnerish theme, although it seemed to have a little bit of Gattica in it to me as well. Anyway, watch the trailer, and tell me what you think.

I’ve talked about Spiderman 3 looking awesome, so I don’t need to mention that. I hesitate to say, but there will be a sequel to… ahemfantasticfour… that will feature the Silver Surfer. In fact, the offical title of the movie, according to aintitcool.com, is “Fantastic Four - Rise of the Silver Surfer”, which is a pretty kickass name. I was one of those people who were big on the idea that Spiderman 2 would be called “The Amazing Spider-Man”, as sort of a homage to those grandiose Stan Lee comic names of the day. Unfortunately, Sony saw it differently, but it turned out to be great anyway.
I digress (and officially challenge somebody to tell me how many posts the words ‘I digress’ appear in)
Fantastic Four was a horrible, horrible movie, and I didn’t even see it. Theres little chance that a sequel, even with a good name, and the presence of the Surfer (yes, I’m a geek, Silver Surfer kicks ass), will be anything short of crap, which really, really disappoints me.http://www.snakesonablog.com

If Samuel L doesn’t say “I WANT THESE MOTHERFUCKIN SNAKES OFF THIS MOTHERFUCKIN PLANE” in the movie, then I’m going to burn something down. Granted, I’m not lining up to watch the movie, but things have to be done right. Maybe those of us interested can take up a collection to pay SLJ to utter those lines in case he doesn’t in the movie. Interested?

300_comic.jpgAn adaptation of Frank Millers 300 is in the works, by Dawn of the Dead remake director Zach Snyder. Dawn of the Dead takes the AT cake as creepiest damn movie ever. I had PTS disorder for a few days after watching it, and went as far as taking steps to zombieproof the house. He has my vote to direct pretty much anything good, and while I’m not familar with Miller’s story about the Battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartan soldiers took on 1,000,000 Persians in 480 BC, I’m sure that he will bring the appropriate amount of gore and hacked body parts to justify the story, while still paying attention to social thingys. And I understand theres a canyon involved.

For those in the know of something cool, ol’ Zach Synder is attached to direct the inevitable Watchmen movie. How a gritty, violent, realistic movie about the flippance of comic book fiction is going to work has yet to be determined. Don’t know if anybody can pull that one off.

I could talk about more, like Jet Li’s Fearless, but I won’t. Joe, you can have your style back now.

6 Responses to “Camera Lucida - Is there hope for decent movies coming out soon?”



  1. GoldenAppleCorp Says:

    You forgot to mention Nicholas Cage’s remake of Wickerman.
    What? You mean you didn’t forget it?
    Left it out on purpo…? Oh, ok. Yeah, cuz it looks like it’s gonna suck.
    Right.

  2. Atomictumor Says:

    Man, I did mean to say something about. And how its going to suck. But, seeing the source material, well… at least it didn’t have Nicolas Cage.

  3. Joe P. Says:

    well at least ya admitted yer cribbing.

    and you did mention some fine films ahead. i’m very much in anticipation
    of Grindhouse and the 300 movies. and why is it that a big city like knoxvegas
    can’t get much past the mainstream hooey from Hollywood?

    while i did like the first Wickerman, what really interests me about this remake
    with Cage is that it is adapated and directed by Neil LaBute, who has a knack for
    capturing savage behavior in modern times, though never as an outright horror movie.
    count me as a maybe on that one.

    you cribber.

  4. Atomictumor Says:

    Yeah, but dammit, Nick Cage. There aren’t many actors that irritate me more than him. Yes, Raising Arizona and Adaptation were great movies. Unfortunately, thats pretty much the depth of his range.

  5. Atomictumor Says:

    Also, Joe, maybe this’ll teach you for not putting up a post yesterday! THpppppth

  6. Joe P. Says:

    How could I hope to top yer campaign announcement???