Every once in a while, a story comes along that just leaves you scratching your head. If it had been announced by some random blog or rumor website, one could dismiss it as pure conjecture - silly conjecture at that - and go on with their lives. But the story came from The Hollywood Reporter, a respectable Hollywood insider that usually doesn’t give in to rumors.

The Hollywood Reporter is… reporting… that a movie is being made that is based on the classic Hasbro board game Monopoly. Yes, Monopoly. I’m sorry, but Candy Land might be worthy of movie status simply because it lends itself to such (and yes, a cartoon was made on that film), but Monopoly? Really?

Is it just some preliminary brainstorming that Universal Studios is tossing around? No. Pamela Pettler is set to write the screenplay, and Ridley Scott - yes, Ridley Scott - has officially signed on to direct. Can you imagine that meeting where they called Scott in to pitch him on Monopoly: The Movie? How do you convince a director like that to take on such a likely crapfest?

Well, according to the article, the movie may be set in the future with a Blade Runner edginess. Hmm. So, allegedly, the movie is going to be a sequel to Blade Runner but based on a board game?

I don’t get it. I really don’t get it. None of this story makes sense whatsoever.

Fans were already apprehensive with the casting of Seth Rogen as The Green Hornet, one of the world’s oldest superheroes, and now they have a reason to be downright upset. With the hiring of director Stephen Chow (Kung Fu Hustle, Shaolin Soccer), it sounds like the movie is headed back towards being more of a comedy than the serious action flick “promised” a little while back. (more…)

When hearing that Year of the Fish is a modern-day Cinderella story, that’s not a cue to take your children to it. After all, the movie is about a Chinese immigrant named Ye Xian (An Nguyen) who finds herself working for and in debt to the owner of a massage parlor - in actuality a brothel - in New York.

Year of the Fish is a film festival picture that opened in Seattle (and presumably elsewhere) over the weekend and that rolls Chinese folklore, modern-day issues and a Cinderella love story into one. The result is mixed, but given the obvious small budget and limited scope, it is decent enough. (more…)

My contacts over at Electric Artists alerted me to this ridiculously insane event: the

Netflix Movie Watching World Championship. What is the Netflix Movie Watching World Championship, you ask? Well, it’s a laid back event where all you have to do is watch movies, and lots of ‘em.

Easy peesy, you say, while chuckling and saying this is a great way to earn $10,000, a lifetime subscription to Netflix and the first-ever Popcorn Bowl. If you love movies, one can’t possibly think of a better way to make some quick cash.

But wait, there’s more! (said in the tone of voice that Matthew Lillard whines as he reveals the plot to murder teens during Scream) You don’t want to enter this event… at least I hope you don’t. You see… the point of the Netflix Movie Watching World Championship is to beat the world record of straight movie watching, which right now is 120 hours and 23 minutes. 120 hours and 23 fucking minutes. Are you kidding me???

I love watching movies. Absolutely love it. But I would pull my eyes out, slice them up into little pieces and then trickle the shavings back into my gaping, bloody sockets before subjecting myself to anything near that many hours. How or why anyone would want to do this to themselves is beyond me, but

Ashish Sharma of Mathura, India - who will also be competing in the event to defend his title for his country - watched for 120 hours and 23 minutes. Jesus Christ, Allah, Buddah and 1,000 Hindu gods! Let’s through in Ra and Zeus for good measure.

Netflix is also running a Facebook contests for people to submit video applications. I’m told to search for “Netflix Championship” on Facebook, but wasn’t able to find it. The World Championship runs from October 2nd to the 5th, 2008, and participants are not able to sleep or take their eyes off the screen, aside from 10-minute breaks between movies.

It’s September, which means that the summer movie season is officially over and the crap of Hollywood can make it to the big screen. September is historically a bad month for movies, as kids return to school, vacations end and people scramble for the remnants of good weather. This is also the perfect time for studios to dump the waste onto audiences.

Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean there will be nothing to watch this September. Below is a list of movies I’m looking forward to in September: (more…)

It’s almost September, which means that network television is returning to us once again. The fifth season of The Office premieres on September 25th, which means that Season Four is coming to DVD… on September 2nd, to be precise.

The Office: Season Four starts off where Season Three left off - surprise, surprise - with Pam and Jim bringing their relationship into the public atmosphere of Dundler Mifflin. Engagement is hinted at, but will Jim actually propose? Meanwhile, Dwight is continuing his quest to become head of the office (or at least second-in-charge, now that Jim officially holds that title), while still annoyed by the progressing relationship of Andy and his ex, Angela. And Michael is finding his relationship with Jan strained to the brink. Also, young “Wunderkind” Ryan, who was promoted above Michael last season, is trying to take Dundler Mifflin into the 21st century, further creating tension between him and his former colleagues.

(more…)

Another one of Chuck Palahniuk’s books is being turned into a movie, and the world will be better for it. Assuming they do it right, of course.

Palahniuk has Choke, starring Sam Rockwell, coming to theaters this fall, but the author with the name that no one quite knows how to pronounce is best known for Fight Club. Take Fight Club, make it stranger and even better and you get Rant, one of my all-time favorite books.

I had received Rant, the book, as a contest giveaway last summer, and almost gave every copy away. Thankfully, my roommate is a Palahniuk fan and alerted me to the fact that the book may actually be good. So, I decided to read it. A weekend later, I set that book down, utterly amazed at what I had read. It was a frikkin’ masterpiece.

Rant, as described on the book cover, is about the world’s most lethal serial killer. That seems simple enough, right? Right? Wrong! The book is told as an oral history; that is, while fiction, it is told in an interview-style narrative with dozens of characters, all of whom have their own perspective and stories to tell about the infamous Buster Casey. Casey is an odd fellow… he likes to stick his hands down animal holes with hopes of getting bitten, and he also heads up an urban night game that involves smashing cars. He’s not exactly serial killer material, but when Palahniuk means serial killer, he may mean a whole spectrum of things. Trust me - until you read the book through to the end, you will not understand what this book is like, or what it is about.

As you can tell, I am excited at the prospect of a movie. At the same time, this is a book that, if done right - and it can be done right - could be made into an exceptional movie, but it also has a 95% chance of missing the mark. The director, writer and approach will all have a significant bearing on the film’s quality, more so than other, more standard pieces of work. It will be interesting to see how the project progresses.

It may be nothing… or it may be something. Twilight, only a couple months before its release, has returned some of its actors to shooting new scenes.

Peter Facinelli (Carlisle Cullen in the movie) told MTV that there’s nothing wrong with the current film, but that executives were so delighted with the wrapped film that they opted to make some more of it; in other words, make the film everybody is waiting for.  “They liked it so much, they are bringing us back for some encore time to beef it up. Add a little salt and pepper.”

That’s ominous, in my opinion. If the executives liked it so much, why add more to it? It’s not completely ridiculous - perhaps the movie is so good that the executives approved additional budget to film scenes that were originally cut - but highly unlikely. And when I hear quotes like the one provided above, it sounds like major PR spin bullshit.

Here’s some more from Facinelli:

“I wouldn’t be walking tomorrow if I spilled those beans, but I’m psyched, especially about the wardrobe. I can tell you that it’s a flashback scene. It gives us a little bit of history of the Cullen family. They are just shooting a couple of different added scenes, and the scene I’m in, I can tell you it’s me and Robert Pattinson. Rosalie and Emmett are in that scene.”

And from Taylor Lautner (Jacob Black in the film): “I am going to be in the prom scene now, at the very end of the film. At first we didn’t film that, and now some people are saying they want to see a bit more of Jacob, and they want him in the prom scene at the end.”

Superman is going to get just a little bit darker, according to Warner Brothers president Jeff Robinov, and will completely ignore the recent Brian Singer movie. Is that good or bad news? I think good.

As most of you know, I prefer something a little darker and edgier over lighter and goofier, which is the direction Singer took (while also attempting to add in drama and Jesus references). Comic book movies need to walk that fine line between being lighthearted and “appealing to the masses” and being serious, hard core movies. With The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan completely crossed that line to the serious side and proved it can work to massive box office returns.

Given the box office “failure” of the reboot Superman Returns and the stunning success of The Dark Knight - the first film to even inspire speculation that it could beat Titanic - it’s no surprise that Warner Brothers wants to take things to the dark side. In fact, according to Robinov, every DC Comics release over the next several years will take that approach, to “the extent that the characters allow it.”

Personally, I really enjoyed Superman Returns, though in hindsight my “A” rating was probably a bit generous. The movie was grand, had some decent action and did, in fact, treat Superman in a more serious light. Still, as Singer stated himself, he wanted this movie to be a continuation of the old Christopher Reeves movies, and thus a level of goofiness and lightheartedness remained. What hurt the movie was that Singer attempted to combine action, comedy, drama and allegory all into one, and that’s just not what people wanted. Furthermore, while there were some good action scenes, the movie was not the explosive action-fest one would expect from a 21st century Superman. Finally, while Spacey was really good, his Lex Luthor was a bit too much of a homage to Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor; the world has moved beyond dangerous but goofy villains with huge, “blow up the world” kind of plots.

So, assuming that Lex Luthor is once again the villain in this reboot of Superman, let’s look at what the new movie, currently titled The Man of Steel, needs to do to be successful:

• More action. The Dark Knight proved that you can make a serious, thought-provoking movie that ends with non-stop action and violence for the final 45 minutes.
• Better marketing. The marketing team was tied with the last one as the film lacked the money shots needed to really wow audiences into theaters. Better action should help this out.
• A more serious Lex Luthor. I don’t need to see him coming up with some zany plot to destroy the world by making new real estate. Have him do serious things with serious consequences, and lose the goofiness. Luthor should be legitimately scary and threatening.
• A real, good guy vs. bad guy ending. Don’t end the movie with Luthor winding up on a deserted tropical island (how did his helicopter have the fuel to go that far anyway?) and Superman saving the day by lifting a continent in the sky, causing him to almost-die for another 20 minutes. Have a battle of epic proportions that comes down to the closing credits, where Luthor ends up in jail and some other villain ends up dead.
• Have a bad guy that can pose a physical threat to Superman. Done right, The Man of Steel doesn’t need a supervillain, but better be safe than sorry. Introduce a villain that is deliciously evil and can put up a fight against Supes.
• Lose Superman’s kid. It’s unlikely we’ll see the son of Superman anytime soon. Seriously, Singer, what were you thinking?
• Don’t dwell too much on the beginnings of Superman. We all know how he came to be on Earth, how he was raised, etc. Don’t spend 45 minutes on it, unless you get Christopher Nolan to do that film as well.
• Give Superman a personality. He doesn’t have to be a depressed robot like Brandon Routh was.

All that being said, Warner Brothers will have to be careful to keep charisma in their pictures as they give a darker overtone to them. When done right, the results can be marvelous (The Dark Knight), but they’ll have to be careful not to attempt to duplicate its success by simply “making things serious.” If done wrong, you’ll get some rather dull films sapped of their comic energy, and that’s not going to win over audiences. Instead, as with any film, you need the right combination of director, writer, cast and screenplay; WB should be careful not to lose sight of this.

Here’s the perfect example why popularity ratings cannot be used to make Top 10 Lists… or in this case, Top 30 Lists. Yahoo! has released a list of its Top 30 Sci-Fi Movies, according to its user ratings. I can’t be too harsh, though, as there are some surprisingly good entries - but as you’ll see, there are some surprisingly bad ones, too.

Number 30 is a pleasant surprise, as Yahoo! users rated Serenity as such. I didn’t know there were enough people who had seen this awesome flick to get it on such a list, but I guess there are. Serenity is one of the best action sci-fi flicks in recent memory. The list includes the ones you’d expect to be on there, such as E.T., The Empire Strikes Back, Back to the Future, etc., but there are some that clearly benefited from their recency, such as:

• X-Men: The Last Stand - this was really not that good of a movie, and certainly not good enough to rank in the top 30
• Deja Vu - a pretty good movie, but top 30 sci-fi films of all time? I don’t think so/
• V for Vendetta - it’s set in the future, but I’d question how “sci-fi” this movie really is. Plus, it’s a bit overrated, and ranks above X-Men 2???
• Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith - seriously?
• Transformers - awesome action movie, but it ranks #3 on the list ahead of The Matrix, Aliens and countless other classics. No way, Jose.
• Iron Man - guess what was #1 on the list? Yes, this year’s comic book action movie. As good as it was, there is no way I would list it on the top 30 sci-fi movies of all time. What a way to damage the integrity of your list, Yahoo!

Again, in all fairness, two-thirds of their list probably deserve to be on there, but there are some notable films missing, such as:

• 2001: A Space Oddysey
• A Clockwork Orange
• Children of Men
• Dark City
• Independence Day (if you’re going the popular route)
• Minority Report
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
• Unbreakable
• Wall-E
• Blade Runner
• The Thing
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers (how many remakes has this inspired?)
• The Iron Giant
• Planet of the Apes
• Galaxy Quest
• Total Recall
• Mad Max

And the list goes on… This has inspired me to do my own list, which I will release sometime soon.