Happy Canada Day. It's a long, long weekend so I'm taking a break from pop culture, but here are a few images to celebrate some of Canada's contributions to the field.

Labels: Canuck, cartoons, movies, music, Popped Culture, TV

Some selective editing and a dramatic score can completely change the flavour and intent of a film. Take Ferris Bueller's Day Off, cut everything except the most dramatic scenes and lines and overlay Lux Aeterna, best known as the theme music for Requiem for a Dream and you have an entirely different movie.

For a stunning mashup of Requiem for a Dream, check out the twisted version of Toy Story.

Labels: Darren Aronofsky, Ferris Bueller, mashups, movies, Requiem for a Dream, YouTube

My filtered water tastes impure.My turkey and giblets has begun to taste exactly like my whitefish and tuna in gravy. It's all the same.

French cat existential angst at its arty best.

Link via Cute Overload! and by way of Pam, who's kittie isn't quite as deep a thinker.

Labels: art, cats, French film, movies, YouTube

In a summer season crowded with super heroes and big-budget blow 'em ups, how does a long-lost franchise break through the marketing clutter? No, not Indiana Jones — is there anyone who doesn't know that's coming out? (Plus it has a Cannes premiere, for whatever reason.) And I'm not talking about Sex and City, which has every media outlet indulging in all the fashion and relationship brouhaha that swirls around it.

I speak instead of intrepid FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, who have long since faded from our TV screens. While the show went off the air in 2002, for many fans it ended two years previously when David Duchovney started curtailing his appearances. I had been an avid fan but lost interest with the convoluted, going-nowhere mythology, and once Mulder was gone I transferred my allegiances to a young Sydney Bristow. I never even saw the finale. A movie came out, which I recall had something to do with bees, and is now mostly referenced as a cautionary tale for Lost on how not to wrap up a series.

With so much baggage — and indifference — The X-Files has embarked upon a brilliant stealth marketing campaign to get people talking about extraterrestrials again, with the aid of some very heavy hitters.

First the Vatican weighed in, out of nowhere, professing a belief in aliens. "In my opinion this possibility (of life on other planets) exists," said Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the head of the Vatican Observatory and a scientific adviser to Pope Benedict.

"How can we exclude that life has developed elsewhere," he told the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano in an interview in its Tuesday-Wednesday edition, explaining that the large number of galaxies with their own planets made this possible.

This from a church who didn't get around to admitting that Galileo was right about the earth revolving around the sun until 1992.

Then on the same day Britain's Ministry of Defense released their files on UFO sightings, dating back to the 1970s, with more to come. The ministry said it compiled the reports solely to determine whether enemy aircraft had infiltrated British airspace. "The Ministry of Defense has no other interest or role regarding UFO matters and does not consider questions regarding the existence or otherwise of extraterrestrial life-forms," it said Wednesday.

A coincidence, as easily explained as weather balloons reflecting city lights, or evidence of viral marketing is out there? It's a conspiracy I want to believe.

Labels: aliens, conspiracy theories, movies, religion, X-Files

One of the best of the fan-produced "Sweded" versions of films, based on the process in Be Kind Rewind. I'd say these videos are becoming more popular than the film itself.

Snacked has put together an extensive list of Sweded movies, or head to Be Kind Rewind's YouTube page.

(I'm actually on vacation right now. This post brought to you by the miracle of Blogger in Draft's Scheduled Post Publishing.)

Labels: movies, parody, Star Wars, sweded, YouTube

Another cool piece of typography, which appears to be a fascination of mine these days. I love seeing what can be done with words and am jealous as I wouldn't be able to do it myself.

The t-shirt isn't much of a spoiler, unless you are a pop culture shut-in. It's more hipster irony and another in a series of t-shirts that would be cool to wear if I still did that sort of thing. Get it here. Artist Olly Moss has a wealth of other cool designs as well.

(I'm actually on vacation right now. This post brought to you by the miracle of Blogger in Draft's Scheduled Post Publishing.)

Labels: movies, spoilers, t-shirt, typography

So even the writer's strike couldn't stop the show from going on, and while I think it would have been amusing to see this bloated love-in taken down, now that it is here I might as well as snipe from the sidelines. I couldn't bring myself to watch the red carpet though, but for a full rundown of all the fakery, check out The Ampersand and Inside the Box. On with the show...

8:30 - Just a big ol' montage — every film needs a montage.

8:33 - Jon Stewart acknowledges the writer's strike right off the top — nice to see, I suppose you can't ignore the elephant in the room. He's looking way more comfortable than last time.

8:35 - "Thank goodnees for teen sex!" Truer words were never spoken.

8:36 - The first Jack Nicholson reaction shot. They will return to it again and again and...

8:38 - Going after Dennis Hopper? Seems a little odd and easy, but ok. Oh, but he did teach everyone how to find their own porn name, thanks to Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody, which is also a fine porn name. Mine is Sasha St. George.

8:39 - Iraq humour is not going down so well, but jokes at Republicans? Bullseye.

8:40 - The camera guys keep panning to black members of the audience each time Stewart mentions Barack Obama. It's already predictable.

8:42 - Aren't they supposed to start with a big award? Costume design is the first up, which leads me to believe we are in for a long night. First Oscar goes to Elizabeth: The Golden Age and I am batting zero on the Oscar pool. Nice short speech though. Did they have the Babs clip ready if somebody went short?

8:47 - George Clooney comes up to joke about how long the show is and then presents a clip that will help it drag on. It's 80 years of Oscars as the show tries to get a piece of what every online site, paper and magazine has been running for the past few weeks. Can't blame 'em for trying to get a piece of the action I suppose. On the up side there was a great shot of Jack with what looked like hair plugs. God Hollywood loves themselves.

8:51 - Steve Carrell gets a Get Smart intro. They are really going to push that film. Hmm, they really needed the writers to put together that "spontaneous" dialogue?

8:54 - Ratatouille wins for Animated Film and I'm on the board. Where is the Simpson Movie in this category? Nowhere, that's where. Let that be a lesson for anyone who waits a full decade after they were at the top of their game. And the winner is the first to be played off the stage.

8:57 - La Vie en Rose wins for Best Makeup. Another win for me, another play off the stage.

8:59 - While I don't find people reading lists of names all that enticing, I'd pick that over performances of the Best Original Song. Play long clips of the Best Picture nominees, linger on Jack smirking at the camera — anything but these songs which have so little to do with the films.

9:07 - Visual Effects? Really saving up the for the biggies aren't they? And the Rock as a presenter? Is that some sort of comment about wrestling?

9:08 - The Golden Compass wins and my Oscar picks drop to 50/50. So in a battle between polar bears and giant transforming robots, the bears win. Who knew?

9:10 - We are whipping through the tech categories — take that newspapers with early deadlines. Sweeny Todd wins for Art Direction and I'm back on the plus side, for anyone who is keeping track. Much love for Johnny Depp — and who can blame them? He is the coolest man on earth.

9:13 - Jon says Cate Blanchett is unstoppable. She's a double nominee for Elizabeth and I'm Not There, but that's the sort of thing that tends to split your vote. We'll see soon enough.

9:15 - Cuba Gooding's repeat speech is longer than the first winner of the night. Whatever happened to that guy?

9:18 - Woo hoo, Javier Bardem wins for No Country for Old Men! The first for a No Country sweep? Bardem was so incredibly creepy, it's well deserved. Other than "thanking" the Coen's for his bob haircut, he spends the rest of his time thanking his mom in Spanish — what a sweet guy. C'mon Academy, give these folks some more time.

9:23 - Stewart continues his riff on the writer's strike with "faux" Oscar montages — tributes to periscopes and binoculars and bad dreams. Beats out these Best Song sections.

9:26 - You know what I miss? Interpretive dancing. That was at least terrible enough to be enjoyable. These are just good bathroom breaks. Ha, Stewart just rolled his eyes!

9:28 - Look Owen Wilson is at the Oscars and isn't in the dead people montage!
Too soon?

9:30 - Le Mozart Des Pickpockets wins for Live Action Short Film and I'm back to 50% in the pool. Arrgh!

9:32 - Seinfeld does the bee thing and it is good. I wonder how many times he's been asked to host? Peter and the Wolf wins and I am being killed in my picks. Good thing I'm not at any fabulous party or anything.

9:37 - An hour in and only the second major award of the night. Tilda Swinton wins and swears she is going to give her Oscar to her agent. We'll see if that happens. And she appears to dedicate it to George Clooney's Batman nipples as well.

9:44 - Jessica Alba is a hot mommy-to-be. She hosted the Scientific and Technical Awards which makes you wonder, if they have a show like that, how did TWO sound editing awards make it to the big show?

9: 46 - Only the second Jack mugging of the evening. What's going on?

9:47 - More Jack. There we go. And what a terrible intro for an award about writing - a stilted reading of famous lines. The Coen's win Best Adapted Screenplay for No Country and they have an equally awkward acceptance speech. Their talent is behind the camera, not in front of it. Sadly, it means Sarah Polley loses, but I'm sure this is a case where it was an honour just to be nominated.

9:50 - An explanation about how the voting process works. Yet another bit that has been covered in features in the weeks proceeding, ad nauseum. At least even Stewart knows how lame it is: "That's amazing."

10:02 - Knocked Up's Jonah Hill and Seth Rogen bicker over which one of them is Halle Berry (you had to be there). I can only give thanks that neither of them wore a dress.

10:04 - Yay for Bourne Ultimatum, which picks up an Oscar for Sound Editing. The Bourne series needs more recognition for its reinvention of the action film. Too bad it is not on my Oscar ballot.

10:05 - And then they go right ahead and do so, which wins for Sound Mixing. Which, I believe, means Transformers has been shut out at the Oscars. I'm unbelievably relieved.

10:13 - Marion Cotillard wins for La Vie En Rose and seems truly thankful and stunned. You will see that clip played next year. And I am officially killed on the ballot this year. My apologies to anyone who read the previous post. This is also an upset for Julie Christie, the presumed favourite and he director Sarah Polley.

10:18 - Colin Farrell almost wipes out on stage, but then he doesn't. I'm kinda bored now, but seeing as they are playing another song it's time for snacks and beverages.

10:22 - Jack gets the stage and he's got another pair of sunglasses. He's smirking, but who knows why, he's Jack. Then in yet another montage, all the previous Best Pictures are shown, with both the picture and titles cut off. Bang up job there, Academy or CTV. One of you.

10: 27 - Unforgiven becomes Forgiven and Gladiator is Ladiator. Turns out that was more amusing than I expected.

10:29 - Bourne Ultimatum wins again, this time for Film Editing. I'll have to check the stats, but I think that makes it the big winner of the night, at least so far. "Someone just took the lead in their Oscar pool based on a guess," says Stewart. So true, and it's not me.

10:31 - Even pregnancy can't make Nicole Kidman glow. Damn, she's icy.

10:36 - The Honorary Oscar winner, Robert Boyle, is old enough to refer to Alfred Hitchcock as Hitch. That's cool.

10:42 - Time for the foreign film award — turns out that wasn't La Vie en Rose. Austria wins for The Counterfeiters. Never bet against a Holocaust film.

10:44 - Another song. I wonder if I still have pizza in the fridge? I do, score!

10:49 - John Travolta, who is looking more like Steven Segal, or a vampire, repeats all the Best Song nominees. If they cut this category (or at least the songs) that would be a half hour off the runtime. "Falling Slowly" wins — at least he had a fine speech.

10:57 - Stewart hands over his time to Marketa Irglova who was unceremoniously played off the stage before she could speak about her win for "Falling Slowly." A class act by both.

10:59 - Camon Diaz babbles away before presenting the cinematography award to There Will Be Blood. Yay, I got another one right!

11:01 - Dead person montage! My bet is Heath Ledger will end it. It must be odd for the family of people who get no applause. How uncomfortable. They really need to put some film names up with the pics - I don't know who most of these people are.

11:05 - Heath wins the pool and the audience goes silent.

11:09 - Amy Adams explains why film scores matter and it works! In fact it showed why the song category doesn't. Can you tell I don't like the songs. Atonement wins, and my ballot is picking up.

11:12 - Various soldiers, live from Baghdad, present the Documentary Short Film nominees. See, Hollywood supports the troops!

11:18 - Perhaps it was to balance out the win by Taxi To The Dark Side. The most political speech of the night. "Let's turn away from the dark side and into the light."

11:23 - Harrison Ford is back from the dead! Oh wait, he just looks like that. I'm so worried about the next Indiana Jones flick. If it turns out ok they should win an Oscar for best effects.

11:25 - Diablo Cody, the hottest writer in Hollywood, wins Best Original Screenplay for Juno. It's a great moment — she's an ex-stripper, this is her first screenplay (at least her first made into a movie) and it is for the feel good film of the night.

11:31 - We are now officially into overtime. Of course that was the easiest pick of the night.

11:34 - Daniel Day Lewis wins Best Actor for There Will Be Blood — one of the only sure picks of the night. He's so gracious.

11:36 - What have they done with Stewart? He hasn't had any screen time for ages and I didn't notice until now. This show really doesn't need a host and Stewart's talents are wasted here. He's watered down and benign, with out his sidekicks to bounce off. If they ask you again, say no.

11:43 - The Coen Brothers win Best Director for No Country For Old Men. These guys just love making movies. They'd best not go to far, they will have to make another of their short speeches in a few minutes.

11:46 - No Country For Old Men wins for Best Picture. We went to see it at the Toronto film festival this year and I'm glad we did as it was one of the only nominated films we got to see this year. It was a cold, cold film about the evil that men do, but virtuoso film making and well deserved.

11:49 - So I got 15/24 right, a pass, but not much of one. I nailed Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actor and Actress and the writing categories but fell apart on the more technical awards. It may have helped if I'd seen more films, but a 16-month-old makes that hard. Ah well.

So a generally unexciting show made more so by showing all the exciting moments of the past 80 years.

Labels: award shows, movies, Oscars

Predicting the Oscars is not that hard, but winning an Oscar pool is almost as difficult as getting one of this little golden men. I may not be able to get you to the top, but follow this advice and I will at least bring you into striking distance.


1. Read those who know

I don't have any special insider knowledge or Academy clairvoyance, but I read people who seem to. First stop for anyone filling out their ballot should be Entertainment Weekly. They predict every category, down to the two sound categories, with surprising accuracy. Yup, there are two sound categories and winning them will help you rise to the top.

Next stop, Film Experience. Nathaniel has a unerring sense of what is going to win and also what is going to be nominated in the first place. His perspective is that of a true film fanatic who is able to look past who he would like to win to who actually will. While neither source is infallible, in the long run you can't beat their track records.

There are a few other sites that can help you through your choices (Awards Daily; The Envelope; Oscar Frenzy) but you can drive yourself crazy trying to keep up with it all.

2. Know what has come before

Academy voters usually belong to another Hollywood group that, more likely than not, has their own award show that precedes the Oscars. These are the folks that get ballots so knowing how they voted will give you a pretty good idea of how the night will progress.

Screen Actors Guild Awards

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
Daniel Day-Lewis – There Will Be Blood

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
Julie Christie – Away From Her

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
Javier Bardem – No Country For Old Men

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
Ruby Dee – American Gangster

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
No Country For Old Men

Writers Guild of America

Original Screenplay
Juno, Written by Diablo Cody

Adapted Screenplay
No Country For Old Men, Screenplay by Ethan Coen & Joel Coen, Based on the Novel by Cormac McCarthy

Directors Guild of America

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen - No Country for Old Men

Producers Guild of America

Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures
No Country for Old Men

3. Know the odds

You can read the critics lists but realistically they don't really come into play on this night. The critics will pick what they believe is the best film or performance of the lot — which is at it should be — but should win doesn't matter. So go the guys who are in it to win: the Las Vegas Oscar odds.

Pretty much all the online bookmakers are putting out odds, as do the casinos. Here's the line from Bodog on best picture — you can read the rest here.

Odds On: Which film will win the 80th Annual Academy (Oscar) Award for Best Picture?

Atonement: 6/1
Juno : 13/2
Michael Clayton: 25/1
No Country for Old Men: 4/11
There Will Be Blood: 11/2

4. Ignore all the above

Every year there is an unexpected winner that nobody sees coming. So take a chance on a long shot to get an edge over the competition. But you should mostly copy EW. I'll let you know how it worked for me.

Labels: award shows, movies, Oscars

The 22nd chapter of the James Bond saga was announced today — Quantum of Solace. I'm not so crazy about the title, but it still beats Octopussy.

Already there are complaints of the "worst title ever" variety, by people who suffer under the delusion that they titles are usually masterpieces. Take a look, there are as many hits as misses.

Co-producer Michael Wilson told the BBC that the name had only been decided upon a few days ago, so I don't know if this poster is real or not, but I like the look, so there it is.

The title is in reference to the last remaining element in a relationship after love has died, before the inevitable split. Daniel Craig told reporters that author Ian Fleming defined a quantum of solace — it means, roughly, a measure of comfort — as "that spark of niceness in a relationship that if you don't have, you might as well give up."

The film begins "literally an hour after the last film left off," says Wilson. "We thought it was an intriguing title and referenced what happened to Bond and what is happening in the film." Quantum finds 007 learning more about his betrayal by Vesper Lynd and lookin for some payback. "He had his heart broken at the end of the last movie and that certainly is a spur for him in this one," added Craig.

"I'd be lying if I said there wasn't revenge in his heart. But it's more than that. That spurs him on, but that's not what the movie is. It's not a revenge movie. It's about him figuring a few things out."

Hopefully not. The last revenge-based Bond, Licence to Kill, was a disaster. A Bond out to murder, overrun by his emotions, was so out of characters. Of course it could have had something to do with the unloved Timothy Dalton too.

The relaunch of of the Bond franchise with Craig in 2006's Casino Royale was a stunning success, as the producers took a character and an film icon that was growing long in the tooth and dragged him into the new century by returning to his past. The film was darker and less gadget obsessed, having more in common with the stunning Bourne series than the preceding installment, Die Another Day. Hopefully lightning can strike twice — we'll know in 10 months.

Labels: 007, Daniel Craig, James Bond, movies, Quantum of Solace

"No money, no funny! No money, no funny!" - strikers chanting outside Rockefeller Center in New York.

The Writers Guild of America put down their pencils today and picked up placards, vowing to stay on strike until Hollywood producers open up the vaults and share the wealth. It can be hard to feel sympathy for a group whose average member pulls in $200,000, with the top tier pulling in millions yearly, unless you examine the industry in which they work. Many actors, directors and executives receive staggeringly large paycheques and, according to Reuters, the motion picture and TV industry generates $30 billion in annual economic activity for Los Angeles County alone, so there is a lot of money to go around. Why shouldn't the creators, the ones who put the words in actors' mouths be getting their fair share of the gold?

It's much like sports - professional athletes get paid millions, but the people who pay them earn billions. Somebody has to get the money and it would be nice to see it go to the actual talent. The sports analogy is echoed by Chris Albers, a writer for Late Night With Conan O’Brien.

“The majority of writers are barely making a living, and the majority of writers’ careers are very short-lived,” said Albers, a past president of the East Coast branch of the Writers Guild. “So we feel that if these companies are going to be making a lot of money off of what we create, and we only have a few years to be in the game, then it’s fair to compensate us so that we can support our families.”

Sure, some of those in the game are writer-producers like Shonda Rhimes, the creator of Grey’s Anatomy, and Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, the lead writers and show runners on Lost, so they aren't hard done by. But I'd rather see them with a larger piece of the pie than some nameless corporate exec.

Now whether or not the strike will work is another question. Often these labour disputes are settled based on whose pockets can hold out the longest. For now the studios and producers can afford to wait. Sure, the late night shows from The Daily Show to The Late Show with David Letterman will be showing repeats starting tonight, while sitcoms and serials should be fine for a couple of months before they start running out of stockpiled scripts.

It will take even longer for the labour dispute to hit the film industry, but the last strike lasted 22 weeks, so it could happen. When it does the studios will really start losing ad and ticket revenue and may be forced to settle. Until then some of the lower-rung writers may find themselves getting squeezed.

While I hope they get what they are after — as someone who has been paid to write before, I say get whatever you can — I won't mind a bit of a break to catch up on my PVR backlog. With a one-year-old I can barely keep up. Even though I will eventually burn thorough what I have stored, don't rush back on my account.

Labels: Hollywood, movies, strike, TV, Writers Guild of America, writers strike

The space shuttle Discovery blasted in to space yesterday carrying its usual payload of scientific doodads and a crew of clean-cut, athletic go-getters (I hate people like that). I know what you’re thinking: “Oh no, not another boring space launch. Change the channel. Change the channel!”

But something in the cargo caught my attention – a lightsaber used by Mark Hamil in Return of the Jedi. The kid in me wonders if there are really raging space battles taking place overhead that they need such a powerful weapon, but the realist in me figures it’s just a publicity stunt to earn George Lucas more money to throw on the pile.

Or maybe NASA has realized a simple truth – most of our knowledge comes from pop culture, so why not hitch a ride?

My first memories of space are from Star Wars, quickly followed by Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (Bidibidibidi, hey Buck). It’s how I saw space – a wild west frontier filled with lasers, wise-cracking pilots and short little robots.

Then came The Black Hole, Moonraker (a rather silly Bond film in retrospect) and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, my first introduction to Gene Roddenberry’s world. At the tine we only got two channels on TV, so I’d never seen the characters – luckily the film didn’t put me off.

From there I was introduced to the original Star Trek and its myriad spin-offs, to the writing of Issac Asimov, 2001, Dune and happily to the brilliantly funny Douglas Adams, whose Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy required you to have at least a modicum of sci-fi knowledge.

While my head may have been buried in the stars I had no real knowledge – or interest for that matter – in the realities of space exploration. So when I recently found myself in Florida, not far from Cape Canaveral, I jumped at a chance for a tour.

We saw Discovery sitting on the launch site (covered in high-tech scaffolding) and many of the Apollo rockets that took men into space. And as I sat in the control room that was used during the moon landing, I was thinking about how The Simpsons got it right in Deep Space Homer.

Assistant: Sir, the TV ratings for the launch are the highest in ten years.
Scientist: And how's the spacecraft doing?
Assistant: I dunno. All this equipment is just used to measure TV ratings.

So maybe sending the lightsaber into space wasn’t just a Lucas publicity stunt and NASA understands that to connect people to the space missions it may need a little help from pop culture.

Labels: lightsabers, movies, NASA, science fiction, shuttle, Simpsons, space, Star Wars

It’s always a good day when a new 30-Second Bunnies shows up in the mailbox. I get a surprising amount of joy watching squeaky-voiced little rabbits perform an entire movie in the time it takes for a commercial to pitch something nobody should buy. (Oreo pizza anyone?)

So when the reenactment of both Kill Bills arrived I was excited. The fuzzy versions of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction distilled Quentin Tarantino’s language and flow into a potent shot and I expected the same again. Sadly, it didn’t deliver. Stripped of the style and music it just seemed… empty.

But I forgive as I spent the next part of the evening re-watching most of the rest of the 38 other leporid films. Such hoppy goodness.

Labels: 30-Second Bunnies, movies, Quentin Tarantino

The 30-second bunnies are back with their not-so soft and cuddly take on the iconic John McLane and it’s likely the only Die Hard I see this summer. The plot of the upcoming Live Free or Die Hard finds McClane (Bruce Willis) working for Homeland Security and chasing a gang of hackers, trying to take down the world’s electronic infrastructure.

Inevitably these clever, technologically-proficient criminals will be taken down by McClane’s roughneck, hands-on justice after they bring his family into it, thus making it personal. I’ll stick with the bunnies.

Perhaps this will help end Hollywood’s feverish love affair with all sequels, all the time. Ok, probably not. Happy trails, Hans.

Labels: 30-Second Bunnies, Bruce Willis, movies

Hear Ye, Hear Ye, the court is now in session. No longer will you have to end pop culture arguments with friends and comment trolls with the statement, "'cause I said so." The Pop Culture Supreme Court, comprised of nine pop culture bloggers, has come together with a single goal in mind: to render decisions on the most contentious and debated issues amongst our peers. Is George Lucas a hack? Is graffiti art? Is The Simpsons better than Seinfeld?

Our first ruling took on contentious issue of Hollywood remakes: Should there be a moratorium? The issues surrounding remakes has been discussed throughout the blogosphere for years and in traditional media even before that, and as such, they seemed to be an ideal subject to adjudicate.

Each justice has presented their own set of arguments regarding the above question, and we as a court have come to a decision regarding the subject at hand.

By a vote of 6 to 3, the court has decided that there should be no moratorium on remakes in Hollywood, despite their flaws.

The full decision can be found at the Pop Culture Supreme Court, as well as the individual rulings of the eight other talented justices.
My ruling is as follows:

Remakes are the scourge of Hollywood, a crutch for lazy writers and directors, a simple way for producers to turn a quick buck by betting on a sure thing. There artistic risk is minimal as the previous box office results are there to see – the filmmaking equivalent of tracing.

And just as copies of copies tend to lose their definition, remakes often dilute the original artistic intent. Luc Besson’s La Femme Nikita was a brilliantly dark film about an unlikely assassin, but the sin was that it was filmed in French and had to be subtitled for North American audiences (“eww, reading!) When the movie was remade a few years later we got the sunshiney Bridget Fonda in Point of No Return, turning it into a generic thriller.

The same occurred with the Dutch film The Vanishing, a chilling film about a mysterious disappearance and the obsession of one man’s search for a missing loved one. The ending was so pitch black that when director George Sluizer remade the film in English he was forced to alter the ending, destroying the impact of the film.

This travesty isn’t limited to foreign films. Witness the atrocity that was Tim Burton’s remake of Planet of the Apes. Burton is a talented director, but his greatest folly was taking a sci-fi cult fave, dropping millions on it and making it dull and uninteresting. The list goes on – Gus Can Sant’s pointless, shot-for-shot recreation of Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece Psycho; Madonna and Guy Ritchie’s Swept Away.

Based on the previous examples – and the legion of others – it seems a slam dunk to say there should be a moratorium on remakes. But it’s not that easy. On the whole, I’ve seen more good remakes than bad. George Clooney & Brad Pitt’s Ocean’s 11 was great fun and full of style. Was it better than the Rat Pack’s version? I don’t know, I didn’t see it. Al Pacino’s Scarface is so well known that few people even realize that it is a remake. Again, I haven’t seen the 1932 Howard Hawks original. Same goes for The Magnificent Seven, a remake of Japanese master Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. Should I see the source material? Sure. Have I? No.

And that is the crux of the problem. It is easy to say that everyone should see the original films, that they should forgo the new release sections at their local video store and get to know their film history, but it’s not going to happen. For better or worse, film is not a static art form, where once the images have been committed to celluloid they remain untouched and treasured for all time. Much like plays are reinterpreted year after year, films of the past will always be a source for its present.

A bad remake can destroy an original vision, but the best remakes can rescue good stories from obscurity. If remakes are must be made (and it appears that they are) perhaps the best we can hope for is that directors don’t plunder the classics, but help repair flawed work. It’s a long shot, but there is always hope.

Visit the Pop Culture Supreme Court for the full ruling and the decisions of the rest of the members of the bench, who are also listed on my blogroll to the right.

Labels: movies, pop culture, Pop Culture Supreme Court, remakes

Are we all corporate shills? Every time you drop a Simpsons reference, quote a line from Borat or post a blog about Lost are we forwarding a corporate cultural agenda?
I posted this whitewashing of my favourite piece of graffiti over at Torontoist this week and it stirred a debate over corporate media.

“The problem with the art/commerce axis is that, uh, this is commerce too. It may be lighthearted whimsy, but it's lighthearted whimsy that reminds everyone who sees it of one of the Walt Disney Company's most prized corporate holdings (now available on DVD!). It's art that helps convince you to open your wallet and chip in to keep Walt's walk-in freezer running,” commented one reader.

But isn’t all art up for sale? Don’t authors want to sell books and filmmakers want their work to be seen? And if we talk about them later isn’t it an appreciation of the work, not participation in a marketing campaign? At what point does a commercial work transcend its origins and become part of pop culture?

Labels: art, graffiti, movies, supercalifragilisticexpalidocious, Torontoist

Woe be unto the Pirates of the Caribbean, whose swashbucklers only managed to pull in $142.1 million over the past four days. While the third installment of the Disney franchise did set a Memorial Day record, over three days it earned less than last summer’s Dead Man’s Chest and brought in less than Spider-Man 3. Only in Hollywood can making well over $100 million in a weekend be seen as a failure.

Pirates has already made $401 million worldwide, which makes it exceedingly hard to swallow studio complaints that piracy is hurting the industry. It makes me want to go out and buy a copy for $2 at a street corner, out of spite.

Of course skewed Hollywood economics are nothing new. What truly bothers me is how the entertainment press has bought into it. Why are box office stories given such huge play? Why am I reading about what how much cash studio bosses are rolling in every week? That is a business story and there is a whole other section for that

I understand that people are interested in what’s No. 1 at the box office (like that’s a good way to choose what film to see), but why is the box office tally the measuring stick? TV ratings measure audience; music charts tally the number of albums sold; bestsellers’ lists track bestsellers. All of these lists are based on audience popularity, which is how movies should be gauged. Why not use ticket sales as the new measure, which would allow year-to-year comparisons that wouldn’t be affected by the ever-inflating ticket prices. Leave the money to the accountants.

Labels: box office, movies, Pirates of the Caribbean

Star Wars turns 30 today and the franchise hasn’t aged well. It is bloated, self-important and prone to reinventing itself like some aging hipster. Happy birthday kid, it is time to stop reliving those glory days.

I first saw Star Wars (I will never call it A New Hope) when I was six and like almost every kid that year, I loved it. Spaceships, robots, lightsabers, weird aliens, how could I resist? I had Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader figures, Star Wars sheets and I even convinced my parents to let me wallpaper my room in Star Wars characters.

Thirty years later I still hold these movies up as one of the great film experiences of my life, but I’m done with franchise. When the new films came out I was disappointed in them but I didn’t understand the visceral hate some fans spewed. My nephew was seven when A Phantom Menace was released and he loved it, thought Jar Jar Binks was hilarious nad Padmé Amidala was pretty. Who am I to disagree? What would a 30 year old have thought of the original Star Wars? Would a walking, grunting shag carpet and a beeping garbage can have seemed any less ridiculous?

In any case George Lucas keeps repackaging peoples nostalgia and selling it back to them. Prepare for the deluge around this anniversary. As for me, I’ll show my son the original trilogy – the one where Han Solo shot first – and then watch whatever film becomes his touchstone.

Of course that all being said, I do love a good parody. The stormtrooper COPS parody Troops is one of the best.

Labels: movies, parody, Star Wars

The only thing more unlikely than a sitcom about a community of Muslims in a small Canadian prairie town is said comedy becoming a hit and being sold to a French TV channel.

Soon Parisians, the Swiss and French-speaking Africans will be able to see the dubbed antics of the residents of Mercy, Saskatchewan. The show itself is amusing and genteel, lightly poking fun at the misunderstanding between the locals and a congregation of Muslims who set up a mosque in a church basement. It is not an edgy comedy like some hoped and feared, but an easy-going look at how we’re basically all the same. Aw shucks.

But it is that message that appealed to French broadcaster Canal Plus, who saw the positive message as something that the French ought to hear. "They really feel that, given all of the difficulties that France has had in the past year with diversity issues, that they want as many people to see the show as possible," said Mary Darling of Westwind Pictures, the Toronto-based company that produces Little Mosque, to the Canadian Press.

I don’t know if the show can create the kind of understanding they are hoping for, but it certainly can’t hurt. Racial tolerance is easy, comedy is hard.

Speaking of Canadian imports, not everyone is pleased with the cultural exports of my fellow citizens. Canada is a hotbed of movie piracy, according to Hollywood studios and Warner Bros. is having no more of it – canceling all advance screenings of its films.

Warner prez Dan Fellman says about 70 per cent of its films over the past 18 months have been camcorded illegally while showing in Canada. "If we do previews and promotional screenings and radio promotions, we're going to have a pirated copy around the world before the movie opens in many countries," said Fellman.

I‘m shocked to hear that people were recording at preview screenings as the last few I attended were truly onerous affairs. Your bags were searched before entering the theatre and multiple security guards starred at you with night vision goggles throughout the movie. Of course canceling the screenings will just delay the inevitable by two or three days. Perhaps it is just an admission that these word of mouth campaigns have little value as most people have already heard about new films though online sites. The internet giveth and the internet taketh away.

Labels: Little Mosque on the Prairie, movies, Muslims, TV

Yo-ho-ho, just in time for the third installment of Pirates of the Caribbean, comes the 30-Second Bunnies reenactment of the previous two swashbucklers. They are both summed up in the single take for obvious reasons – it was the same movie.

Is Johnny Depp finally walking the plank with this one? Will the Hollywood rebel loose some of his cool factor by continuing to star in the franchise? It was surprising to see him come on board for a Disney movie about a theme park ride, but he turned that around so I’m not counting him out yet. Plus it has Chow Yun-Fat. Sure, he hasn’t done anything good since leaving Hong Kong (go rent Hard Boiled and see what I mean), but hopefully this one will work out.

Of course if Pirates brings in another treasure chest full of cash at the box office, we will likely see another movie rise from the briny depths in two years. As Entertainment Weekly put it: “Vowed the studio, ‘We will not stop until pirate movies suck again.’”

Labels: 30-Second Bunnies, Johnny Depp, movies, Pirates of the Caribbean

Despite the promise of stylistic mayhem, pop culture infused dialogue and a killer soundtrack. I haven’t gone to see Quentin Tarantino’s latest film. Normally a new Tarantino flick wouldn’t get past the opening weekend without my seat in a theatre, but not this time, and I wasn’t the only one.

Grindhouse has garnered critical praise but audiences aren’t buying it. Dropping out of the box office top 10 last weekend it’s moving into flop territory. As I haven’t seen it I can’t pass judgment on the quality, but I can tell you why I didn’t go: I didn’t care.

If Tarantino wants to indulge in nostalgia for an obscure film genre that was considered schlock the first time around he can, but I don’t have to pay for it. Rick Groen wrote in The Globe and Mail recently that Tarantino is at his best when making art from trash but recently he’s no longer elevating the trash but wallowing in it. The movie appears to be Tarantinoesque, a repetition of what he’s done before. Sassy women? Check. Hard-nosed criminals? Check. Obscure cultural references and a revivalist soundtrack? Double check. It feels like I’ve seen it all before.

Perhaps it is all for the best and he’ll come back with something original in a couple of years. He’s gone through these self-indulgent phases before – remember Four Rooms and From Dusk ‘Till Dawn? Of course I will probably rent it when it comes out (which will likely be sooner than later), but let’s ignore that as it kind of suck some of the life out of my rant.

So come on Tarantino, you left that video store a long time ago. Let it go.

Labels: Grindhouse, movies, Quentin Tarantino