Movies/TV's 3R’s 06.30.09: Transformers, Watchmen: Director's Cut, Robocop, More

Posted by Shawn S. Lealos on 06.30.2009

From The Watchmen re-release to Transformers to the death of Farrah Fawcet, Shawn S. Lealos looks at the Rights and Wrongs in this debut edition of the Movies/TV Zone 3R's.

Welcome to Week 1 of the brand spanking new Movie/TV Zone 3R's. My name is Shawn S Lealos and I will be your host for this new column. Most of you know me from my movie reviews and my Saturday original column Alternate Takes while others might know me from my work in the Wrestling Zone as the author of the TNA pay-per-view previews. This column will closely follow the same format as the Wrestling Zone's long running column where I will discuss what happened the last week in film and television and categorize them into the Right, the Wrong and the Ridiculous.

I came on to this a bit late, so this week I am only going to focus on movie news but count on TV news and events in next week's column. For now, let's get into this, the debut edition of The Movie/TV Zone 3R's.

The Right

TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN TOPS $200 MILLION: My review for Transformers will be going live here in a day or two but I will let you know I enjoyed the movie. It was pretty stupid but if you believe the stories calling it boring, you have been misinformed. Steven Spielberg calls this Michael Bay's best movie but that is also wrong - The Rock is his best movie. However, it is always nice to see blockbuster entertainment become critic proof. That happened this weekend when, despite over 90% of the critics practically begging you to stay at home, enough people ignored the warnings and helped push the movie to a $205 million opening week and $382 million worldwide.

Let me repeat that.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen made $382 million worldwide in its opening week.

That is amazing. It is also the opening week Iron Man deserved, so that sucks since Iron Man was better but since people swarmed to the film in droves, I give it all the credit in the world for providing entertainment for so many people.

WATCHMEN DIRECTOR'S CUT TO THEATERS: Everyone should be excited about the upcoming release of Watchmen on DVD. Now, there is an announcement that the Director's Cut, which includes an additional 25 minutes of footage, will screen in theaters in Los Angeles, New York, Minneapolis and Dallas before it is released on DVD. The rollout will also culminate with a special screening July 25 at Comic-Con as a BD-Live event. This is great news to everyone who are fans of the comic, as it will add some plot developments left out of the original, including the death of a supporting character. This is right on more than one level because the movie needed to be kept relatively short for the mainstream audiences but this short run, limited release, is a great love letter for the graphic novel's fans.

THE TRAILER FOR THE BOX: I am a huge Richard Kelly fan based solely on Donnie Darko. I love that movie with every ounce of my being. He disappointed a lot of people with his confusing second film Southland Tales. I hope he rebounds with his third effort, The Box. From the looks of the trailer, I have high hopes. Check out the trailer and understand how cool Frank Lengella's missing cheek is.



OSCARS TO WIDEN FIELD TO 10 BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: This is something I have been waiting for. I don't know if it will matter when it comes to the winner but that doesn't matter much either because I think they got it right the last few years. What this means is more publicity for more movies that need the help of a nomination such as Indies that most people wouldn't know about without the nomination. It will also help movies like The Dark Knight get the nomination its fans believe it deserves. I want to see what the movies are that make the Top 10 at the Oscars. Will it let in movies like The Dark Knight and Wall-E or will it present more obscure movies people don't care about and that really don't deserve the spot (like The Reader). If this gives credit to genre movies and lets in Indie efforts deserving of the attention, it will be a great improvement.

DARREN ARONOFSKY REMAINS ON ROBOCOP: If this was just a case of Aronofsky returning to Robocop, this would be an overwhelming right. He is an extremely talented director and I am dying to see what he can do with a genre property like this instead of his usual art fare. The Wrestler was a step in the right direction and I loved everything about that movie. However, the studio is pushing hard for a PG-13 rating. I'll take Transformers in PG-13 but the studios should have learned something from Terminator: Salvation and that is fans of certain franchises don't want the director to hold back on the violence the franchise is known for. Robocop, more than Terminator has to be Rated R. There is no way a Robocop movie can be rated PG-13 and deliver the goods to make the movie work. If it stays PG-13, don't be surprised to see Aronofsky leave and this to quickly drop to Ridiculous levels.

INGLORIOUS BASTERDS TRAILER: This has been a good week for trailers. I have not been sure about Inglorious Basterds with the previous trailers and being not very well received at Cannes. However, this new trailer kicks all kinds of ass. I now officially will be in line the day the tickets go on sale.

The wRong

DAVID FINCHER WANTS YOU TO BECOME A FAN OF FACEBOOK: THE MOVIE: This movie sounds horrible. How can you take a movie about the formation of an internet phenomenon and make it interesting? However, with David Fincher behind the camera, I have complete faith it will be more interesting than it would be with any other director. He even made Panic Room look interesting, despite its obvious limitations. Knowing Fincher, this movie has about a 25% chance of actually happening. I really hope it doesn't because I want to see Fincher on a more interesting project. Zodiac was awesome. I'd rather see him make one movie like that then see 10 movies about the formation of a corporation.

FARRAH FAWCETT DIES AT 62 - This is under wrong, because it was just a sad passing, especially for someone like me who was alive when she was in her heyday. Her death was completely overshadowed by the death of a certain King of Pop. However, I have great memories of Farrah Fawcett from childhood. I was under ten when Charlie's Angels was on and I actually remember having the classic swimsuit poster on my wall in my early teen years. One of the strongest memories I have from a movie was when I snuck a look at a movie called Extremities. I remember getting excited when I saw Fawcett was going to be getting naked but then was faced with a horrific experience when I watched a rape/revenge movie that won Fawcett a Golden Globe and scarred my memories as a child. She was an incredible talent who had been having trouble for the last few years as she fought cancer. I will always remember her in my memories from this poster:



AMERICAN WEREWOLF REMAKE: You remake bad movies and make them better. You can remake My Bloody Valentine and what results can't be any worse than the first movie. You can even remake Friday the 13th because the original was a low budget Indie horror effort and can be improved as well. But don't remake a classic. Don't remake Hitchcock's The Birds (are you listening Michael Bay?). Also, don't remake a movie as beloved and revered as American Werewolf in London. Of course, there was a sequel nowhere near as iconic as the original but the original is something very special and no remake will ever come close to what made it special. To fill you in, John Landis has sold the remake rights to Dimension Films and it will join Halloween and the upcoming Hellraiser as the latest Weinstein remake. The good news is, the original will still exist and even if future generations only know the movie by its remake, we still have enough memory to love the perfection of Landis' film.

The Ridiculous

CLAIMS OF RACISM IN TRANSFORMERS 2: In not so good news for the film, some reviews have stated that Mudflap and Skids, two of the robots, play into negative racial stereotypes. In the movie, the two robots have gold teeth, talk about "popping a cap in (a character's) ass" and state that they don't read. Actually, another robot also mentions not being able to read and says there is not much use for reading as a Transformer. That leaves the dialect and word usage. I have heard much worse in many other movies (look at Gary Oldman's character in True Romance). However, all the complaints make me laugh. Who is offended at their portrayals? I would almost believe the major complaints are from white people. One of the robots is red and the other is green, are all the red and green robots offended at how they are portrayed?

OSCAR TWEAKS BEST SONG STANDARDS: Sometimes I hate the Oscars. Last year gave a good example of how they can completely get something wrong. How Bruce Springsteen's "The Wrestler" did not receive a nomination for Best Song is inexplicable. I heard rumors that it was not allowed because of its actual release or the fact it was only played over the end credits but the Academy actually said it was not rated with a high enough score to be eligible. The rules have always stated that the songs need to be rated 8.25/10 to get a nomination and now such is a stated rule. Instead of 3 or 5 songs, there can be 2 to 5 nominated and if only one song during a specific year gets a rating over 8.25, the next best will run against it with only the accountants knowing which one is actually eligible. This is crap and they need to get some different people involved in the music branch's committee. Too many times not enough good songs are supported and with this new rule, a deserving song could lose out to another simply because the committee deems the second song not worthy before the voting can even take place.

ENDING FOR 'MY SISTER'S KEEPER' FILM VEERS FROM PICOULT'S BOOK: There are times you can change the ending of a book when it is transferred to a movie. This is NOT one of those times. The end of the book gives a message that despite your best efforts, sometimes fate can get in the way. For those who aren't sure of the plot, Anna is brought into the world using in vitro to be a donor for her older sister who has leukemia. When Anna reaches 13 and her sister needs a transplant, she sues for the right to make her own decisions regarding her body. There is a very good reason she is doing this and it is not because she is selfish. The end of the movie involves the death of one of the girls and it gives a powerful message that, despite everyone's best efforts, life is not always fair. The end of the movie changes which girl dies and that completely flipping the final message of the story. Author Jodi Picoult has been very diplomatic with the changes and asks audiences to judge the movie based on its own merits but to change the end makes it a completely different story. Why change a great thing?


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