Stanley Goodspeed (Cage): I’ll do my best.
John Mason (Connery): Your best!? Losers always whine about their best! Winners go home and f*** the prom queen.
Goodspeed: Carla was the prom queen.
Mason: Really?
[Goodspeed cocks his gun.]
Goodspeed: Yeah.

See? Perfect banter.

However, in the years since Cage’s weird action roles of the Nineties, he has become progressively stranger. Even his kitschy roles are not as kitsch as they used to be. He relies on terrible, terrible movies to make a buck (Next, Knowing, Bangkok Dangerous), and has become quite adept at using questionable wigs to “transform” into character. Historically, Cage has only gotten mileage out of two distinct hairpieces (in Raising Arizona and Adaptation.), yet he seems convinced that his receding hairline (though in full bloom in The Rock) is a detriment not only to his bankability, but his characters.

The trailers for Cage’s two newest films show him sporting the same coif he donned for Con Air, another 90′s action movie which pales in comparison to The Rock. Besides his long tresses being entirely ill-fitting, it looks as though Cage isn’t even having fun in these movies.

Season of the Witch:

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice:

The less said about Season of the Witch, the better. I see absolutely no redeeming quality in the film. It appears to be a combination of Kingdom of Heaven and Van Helsing, which is a conceptually unstable idea considering how poorly both were received by critics and the box office. And at least those had Orlando Bloom and Hugh Jackman for viewers to silently fondle. Here, all audiences have is Nicholas Cage in a wig, doing things that any B-actor could do with ease. Just because Cage is in the film does not elevate it above the realm of schlock.

With The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, it looks as if Jay Baruchel will have the opportunity to make what seems a terrible idea into (at the very least) something palatable through his natural, nervous comedic edge. Cage does him no favors by looking gloomy and not the least bit whimsical. A quick glimpse of a laugh is a promising notion, but even the laugh looked more crooked than maniacal. At the very end of the trailer, just as I was trying to figure out if the lady wig Cage wears was attached to that “awesome” hat, Cage shows just how uncommitted he is to this role. When asked if he is insane by Baruchel’s character, Cage retorts with a finger measurement of his insanity. But his face is blank … there are no crazy eyes, no knowing wink, no smirk … just an aging man’s face framed by a bad hairpiece.

Edward and Bella get it on. Bella gets pregnant. Baby’s killing Bella. Edward hates the baby. Baby loves Bella. Edward loves baby. Bella gives birth. Bella turns into vampire. Jacob falls in love with baby, completely losing all of his feelings for Bella. Baby is the only one of it’s kind. Alice and Jasper leave. Alice and Jasper come back. Baby is not the only one of it’s kind. Volturi and vampire covens get ready for big fight. Big fight doesn’t happen.
The end.

Riveting stuff. Plus, I understand that the copulation and birth scenes are incredibly graphic and ill-conceived, which should make for great entertainment. Now, I know that I have no right to criticize something that I have neither seen nor read, but just looking at the plot details of these stories makes me lose interest. Forgetting that these movies were once books, if any of these were released as original screenplays, the details would simply be too unbelievable and too unmarketable. An adult character falling in love with a baby? A big fight that doesn’t happen? So many opportunities to make a good Hollywood movie are completely avoided in Breaking Dawn, and they want to make it twice as long? For all those clambering for double the Edward and Jacob, I say, “Enjoy your dull story of a pedophile werewolf and his love for an infant vampire, and please stop ruining my cinematic life.”

Twilight is actually a stop-motion animated picture.

And then there were sequels.

Yay?

I have not watched Shrek 2 since I saw it in 2004, and it was only this summer that I took the time to watch Shrek the Third. It is fair to say that neither film is bad; they actually succeed on many levels in entertaining an audience. But both films lack something that is hard to identify, and it has to do with importance: these sequels do not feel needed. DreamWorks Animation has succeeded in producing financially successful movies that rely on old ideas, producing sequels to Shrek, Madagascar, and Kung Fu Panda (in 2011) that feel more like straight-to-DVD quality. The production values remain stellar, yet the stories and characters (and jokes) get thinner with each iteration. Nothing truly original has grown out of the franchise since Shrek, with the exception of Puss in Boots, voiced with charm by Antonio Banderas. Puss is a marvelous supporting character, and works best in small, brilliant moments. Yet he is getting his own movie (Puss in Boots: The Story of an Ogre Killer) in 2011, and the true test will be whether the film attracts the same audience as Shrek, in hopes that more sequels can be made from that franchise.

Some information was released over Thanksgiving about the fourth film in the Shrek series in USA Today. Surprisingly, it states that this film, Shrek Forever After, will be the last. Will it go out with a bang? I don’t know, ask the guy who forced Deuce Bigelow unto the world:

The premise is the Brothers Grimm meets It’s a Wonderful Life: After rescuing a princess, getting hitched and fathering triplets, Shrek is feeling over-domesticated. “He has lost his roar,” says director Mike Mitchell (Sky High, Deuce Bigelow: Male Gigolo). “It used to send villagers running away in terror. Now they run to him and ask him to sign their pitchforks and torches.”

To regain his ogre mojo, he strikes a deal with Rumpelstiltskin, the wee troublemaker who popped up briefly in Shrek 2 and 3. Of course, the pact goes awry and Shrek must confront what life would be like in Far Far Away if he had never existed. That translates into Donkey being forced into cart-pulling duty, fat and lazy Puss in Boots trading his sword for a pink bow and the underhanded Rumpelstiltskin ruling the kingdom.

No Shrek outing would be complete without new characters, and there are a bunch. Comedians Kathy Griffin and Kristin Schaal (Flight of the Conchords) are witches who hunt ogres. On the side of good is an underground resistance group led by Jon Hamm of Mad Men. “He is the best-looking ogre you’ve ever seen,” Mitchell says.

So does Shrek Forever After wrap up with everyone living happily ever after? “I hate to give away the ending,” Mitchell says, “but yes.”

Sounds like the plot of every Shrek film, with even more celebrity voices than before. Perhaps there will be an opening rock number in which they creatively display the opening credits … and then 2/3 of the way through there can be a sad montage set to the beat of of a mellow singer/songwriter. And maybe Donkey will say something sassy, and then Puss could do something cute! And maybe, just maybe, Pinocchio will do something weirdly and wildly inappropriate, like wear a thong. Who knows? This is a whole new movie.

Who's going to play this guy? Wilford Brimley?

That being said, it does not look as if the Monopoly movie, directed by Ridley Scott (Alien, Gladiator), will be as creatively produced. This is how producer Frank Beddor describes the project:

“I created a comedic, lovable loser who lives in Manhattan and works at a real estate company and he’s not very good at his job but he’s great at playing Monopoly. And the world record for playing is 70 straight days – over 1,600 hours – and he wanted to try to convince his friends to help him break that world record. They think he is crazy. They kid him about this girl and they’re playing the game and there’s this big fight. And he’s holding a Chance card and after they’ve left he says, ‘Damn, I wanted to use that Chance card,’ and he throws it down. He falls asleep and then he wakes up in the morning and he’s holding the Chance card, and he thinks, ‘That’s odd.’

“He’s all groggy and he goes down to buy some coffee and he reaches into his pocket and all he has is Monopoly money. All this Monopoly money pours out. He’s confused and embarrassed and the girl reaches across the counter and says, ‘That’s OK.’ And she gives him change in Monopoly money. He walks outside and he’s in this very vibrant place, Monopoly City, and he’s just come out of a Chance Shop. As it goes on, he takes on the evil Parker Brothers in the game of Monolopy. He has to defeat them. It tries to incorporate all the iconic imageries — a sports car pulls up, there’s someone on a horse, someone pushing a wheelbarrow — and rich Uncle Pennybags, you’re going to see him as the maître d’ at the restaurant and he’s the buggy driver and the local eccentric and the doorman at the opera. There’s all these sight gags.”

First of all, I don’t think I ever used a Chance card when playing Monopoly. Second of all: evil Parker Brothers?! I can understand the difficulty of adapting the game for the screen, and all of this information does make sense, but it seems like the creators are trying too hard. He has to play the game of Monopoly? How long is this movie going to be? Most games of Monopoly feel never-ending, and I can only hope the production team captures the thrill of buying stocks and homes. It’s theme of monetary security is really appropriate considering the financial collapse of our country through the misuse of stock and property investments! At least Clue had personalities to fall back on, even if they were simply defined by status and color. The only character of sorts in Monopoly is Uncle Moneybags, and I don’t think they’ll let Bernie Madoff out of jail to just to play him. I doubt he looks good in a mustache, anyway.

First of all, “Titans. Will. Clash.” is the greatest tagline the advertisers could come up with? There would be power in the words if it wasn’t just the title scrambled. Movie trailers rely too much on flashing incoherent words on the screen to provoke a sensation in the viewer. Oftentimes the words are so spaced out that I have to struggle to remember what the entire phrase was; piecing together the tagline from one quick fade to another should not be as much work as it is. The rest of the trailer looks like a lot of good ideas thrown into a blender. There are hints of Guillermo del Toro in the monsters, Lord of the Rings in the helicopter shots, Gladiator in the costumes, and even Pete Postlethwaite. This is simply to say that none of the footage seems original. Granted, a giant scorpion has yet to be done realistically on film, but is that all Titans has to offer? I’ll watch it for Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes as Zeus and Hades, respectively, but I know that they will be good in anything… even if they are the titans which clash.

On the flip side is Kick-Ass, which, even though it is based on a graphic novel, seems fresh and kitsch at the same time. There’s not much in the trailer as far as plot, but the premise does sound fun in a Spider-Man/Superbad sort of way. That’s a fitting comparison considering Superbad‘s McLovin, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, stars as the movie’s villain. I think the prospect of seeing his McLovin character actually get to embrace his gangster style and shoot some people as Red Mist is enough in itself to watch the film. And for once, it looks as if Nicholas Cage has found a character that is as weird and subversive as he thinks he actually is, and it was rather considerate of Lionsgate to not flash his name across the screen every 20 seconds. His role as Big Daddy might actually be worthwhile, which, after his last comic book turn in the fairly bad Ghost Rider, would be about as refreshing as the rest of the movie.

Chillin' out maxin' relaxin' all cool.

I don’t think anyone who watched The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air during the ’90s thought that Will Smith was destined to become an Oscar winner, let alone nominee. Sure, he had the potential to be successful in th film industry, but he did not seem to be following the Sidney Poitier route in terms of his career. And then BAM he gets recognized for dramatic performances in Ali and The Pursuit of Happyness. Suddenly he chooses to star in movies as heady as Seven Pounds, and decides to add some emotional weight to a surprisingly moody genre films (Hancock and I Am Legend). There was even a solid rumor that he would star in a Steven Spielberg-directed remake of Oldboy, a violent, bloody and atmospheric thriller from South Korea.

The Fresh Prince is punking us yet again with the announcement that he wants to produce a new version of Daniel Keyes’ novel Flowers for Algernon:

The story follows a mentally handicapped man who undergoes an experimental procedure that increases his intelligence until he reaches genius level, only to then find himself a social outcast. Ultimately he learns that the experiment’s origin, the titular mouse, is deteriorating.

Sounds exciting, non? It also sounds like another go at nabbing an Academy Award. And the mentally challenged have always done well come Oscar time (just ask Sean Penn or Cliff Robertson, who actually won the award the last time this book was turned into a movie). So yes, this bodes well for Smith. But is that really how we want to watch him? Granted, he will probably more Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump than Cuba Gooding Jr. in Radio, yet that still doesn’t make me want to see the film. I want to see Will Smith be charismatic and funny; you know, like Will Smith. Not that his penchant for drama is a bad thing, it’s just that Algernon is the epitome of showy emotions.

And that’s just not Big Willy’s style.

What helped Dennis the Menace succeed was the cleverness of its source material. The same can not be said of the upcoming adaptation of Marmaduke. Yeah, Marmaduke; that terrible single-panel comic strip which always catches your eye, yet never manages to satisfy. Every time I read the newspaper (they print news on paper now?) I glance at that retched dog, just to see if it will surprise me with something funny or original. Honestly, even a good pun would convince me that some thought has gone into the creation of the comic. But it never happens.

It’s funny ’cause it’s not funny. This blog does an admirable job in deconstructing panels such as this one, revealing nothing, but at least giving the comic purpose. Maybe this is why making a movie based on a series of uncreative ideas is in itself an uncreative idea. Here are the details from Variety:

In adapting the strip created in 1954 by Brad Anderson and Phil Leeming, the script by Tim Rasmussen and Vince Di Meglio sees Marmaduke [voiced by Owen Wilson] navigate a volatile Mutts vs. Pedigrees turf war, woo the purebred of his dreams and overcome a fall from grace. Judy Greer, Lee Pace and William H. Macy play the humans, while Fergie, Emma Stone, George Lopez, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Steve Coogan, Damon Wayans, Marlon Wayans supply the voices.

Will George Lopez be reprising his role as a Beverly Hills chihuahua for this film as well? I hope the producers didn’t make it that easy. Looking at this synopsis makes me cringe, and it’s the exact same face I make whenever I am reminded of G-Force, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Garfield, Racing Stripes, Cats & Dogs, et al. It is refreshing to see that audiences will not be subjected to 90 minutes of Marmaduke lying down and befuddling his owners, but this idea still has no merit. In fact, this almost makes me want to see a Family Circus movie instead. Actually, no. Even tired dog jokes and bad CGI have more relevance than the saccharine/asinine “humor” of the Keane family. Bring on Owen Wilson’s whiny voice, and spare me the unnatural innocence of Dolly.

HAHAHAHAHAHA.

From Variety:

The actor will next star in the romantic comedy “Jack and Jill” and produce via his Happy Madison shingle. Sandler will play Jack as well as twin sister Jill.

Adam Sandler as a 'Gap Girl' on Saturday Night Live.

And you can quickly guess that sister Jill must be overweight by at least a couple pounds, because there is no way this film is being made without a fat suit. Adam Sandler wore a fat suit in Click, and he is not afraid to do it again. His career trajectory is frighteningly similar to that of Eddie Murphy, the other SNL comedian who hit Hollywood running and has since wheezed through awful movies. Their careers are simple: start off subversive (be it edgy or infantile), become blander and fatter (The Nutty Professor or Click), reclaim relevance (Dreamgirls or Punch-Drunk Love), produce kiddie movies (Imagine That or Bedtime Stories) and then try to reclaim any kind of status as comedian (Norbit and now Jack and Jill).

An addendum to that last point: no matter how hard you try, the end result will be disturbingly terrible. This is fact, not hyperbole. As much as I enjoyed past efforts of Sandler portraying women, there is no possible way I could stomach an entire movie of his fey voice and vaguely feminine movements. This seems like a leftover bit from I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, but instead of insulting the gays, now it’s unlucky-in-love women. Unlike Murphy’s character Rasputia from Norbit, it is a certainty that Sandler will give his Jill an emotional arc, challenging the viewer to invest in a character that will definitely be played for stereotypical laughs.

Get it? Get it? It’s funny ’cause it’s a guy playing a girl.

I get it. And I’d appreciate if you (Adam, Eddie, and, while we’re at it, Martin Lawrence and the Wayans clan) would put the idea to rest. It was fresh thirteen years ago, but still far from refreshing. What would be refreshing, is if I didn’t have to read about the inevitability of Big Momma’s House 3, or about a project that makes Little Nicky looked inspired. I would love to see Eddie Murphy get raw again … just not in Beverly Hills Cop IV. There must be a way to make these men funny again, and a good starting point would be to keep them men both on screen and off.

VI actually opened to the smallest numbers the franchise has seen (14.1 million), earning even less than the original did in 2004 (18.2 million), yet it opened in more theaters. Even more interesting is how Paranormal Activity, which has been slowly rolling out over the last month, out-earned Saw VI with 21.1 million.

Now would be a good time to tell you that I have never watched a Saw film. I have been entertained by vaguely horrific movies in the past, but from what I’ve seen in trailers and read in reviews, this franchise eschews any semblance of horror tropes for mindless (and loud … and dimly shot … and horribly acted) images of torture. It was shocking in 2004 when Americans were dealing with their own realities of torture at Abu Ghraib, but its core audience has become desensitized since.

What IS this?!

If we can credit the Saw films with any lasting impact, it would be their commitment to changing what people consider horrific. Which, now that we’ve cycled through six of these things, is very hard to classify. I don’t know what scares people anymore. The reboots of Halloween, The Hills Have Eyes, and the upcoming Nightmare on Elm Street are being affected by this loud, senseless choreography infected in the horror genre by Saw‘s sensibilities. And it isn’t frightening … or enjoyable.

I recently watched Sam Raimi’s “return to horror” Drag Me To Hell, which opened kinda decently this summer. It’s sad it didn’t get as much attention as it should have, because it is blindingly bright spot in the recent history of torture porn-inspired horror flicks. Raimi relies upon the simple elements that naturally scare an audience: shadows, unspeakable evil, and talking goats. Suspense has been denied its proper place in films as of late, and nearly the entire film uses tension as the cohesion between each scene. And sometimes that leads to funny situations that, God forbid, make the film enjoyable on a different level. For too long I have inappropriately laughed at horror movies. When I laughed at the death of a cat in Hell, it was an explicit reaction crafted by Raimi, and I thank him for that.

So where do horror movies go from here? Well, there will definitely be another Saw film. Even if VI drastically underperforms, it will still turn a profit, and in turn greenlight the next installment. But the huge success of Paranormal Activity suggests a new wave of scary movies … and as long as they actually stay scary, I’ll be content. Maybe.