The Hush-Hush News Report 10.20.09: The Shoestring Budget Dilemma
Posted by Jeremy Thomas on 10.20.2009
Lots of Thor and Green Lantern casting buzz, the next appearance for the stars of True Blood, Jason Voorhees to play a Predator, plus a look at the success of Paranomal Activity and what it could mean for the studios!
Hello ladies and gentlemen; welcome to the Hush-Hush News Report! I'm your host Jeremy Thomas, and I would like to start by thanking Erik Luers for filling in for me last week. He did a fantastic job, although I've noticed that he left all of his Penelope Cruz DVD's and photo spreads lying about the office. I'll have to get those back to him. Anyway, we've got a lot of news, rumors and more for us to discuss, plus the editorial and the debut of a brand new feature. So then, let's get right to it!
Before you start reading, have you bookmarked 411Mania.com yet? It's the easiest thing in the world to do, and it'll get you your daily dose of entertainment news that much quicker! Typing the URL out in the address bar is such a pain, don'tcha think? Hell, make it your home page and it'll be that much easier for you!
Four for Thor?
Ain't It Cool News is reporting that actor Matthias Schweighöfer (Valkyrie) told the German edition of GQ magazine that he's in the running for a role in director Kenneth Branagh's Thor and that Jude Law and Robert De Niro have also joined the cast. Additionally, Movieline interviewed Dominic Cooper for Lone Scherfig's An Education and learned that actor was preparing to audition for a role in the movie.
The interviewer happened to notice the Thor sides Cooper had been studying and that he'd been approached for the role of Fandral the Dashing, one of the Warriors Three.
If true, the four would be joining Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Natalie Portman, Jaimie Alexander, Colm Feore, Samuel L. Jackson and Stellan Skarsgard in the comic book adaptation scheduled for a release on May 20, 2011.
First off, this needs to be taken with a major grain of salt. Schweighöfer and Cooper are merely in the running, and no one has confirmed Law or De Niro's involvement. That said, it's fun to speculate, and if Branagh is looking at a cast like this it continues to speak volumes about Marvel's commitment to making good movies instead of good popcorn movies. It's not at all out of the realm of possibility, as Branagh has worked with both actors before; De Niro in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Law in Sleuth. Additionally, both actors have shown that they are willing to take a fantasy/sci-fi oriented role. De Niro was fantastic as Captain Shakespeare in Stardust and Law has done Gattaca, A.I. and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. I won't speculate on who's playing what, but it's rumors like these and Stellan Skarsgard's casting which make me more and more intrigued with this movie.
Rorschach vs. Deadpool in the Making…Kind Of
Ain't It Cool News is reporting a supposedly reliable rumor that Jackie Earle Haley, who played Rorschach Watchmen and stars as Freddy Krueger in the upcoming A Nightmare on Elm Street, is the frontrunner to play Green Lantern villain Sinestro. The site also reports that Superman may make an appearance as well, in a cameo role.
In the DC Universe, Sinestro is a member of the Green Lantern Corps and the mentor of Hal Jordan. His hard-line tactics turn him against the Corps, and he becomes an enemy of the Guardians who run the Corps and the entire Corps itself. He becomes Jordan's greatest and most hated enemy.
Green Lantern, to be directed by Martin Campbell and starring Ryan Reynolds as Jordan, is targeting a June 17, 2011 release date.
This is a casting I've actually been hoping for. Haley has shown he can play dark characters well, and not as one-dimensional nobodies. As the pictures above show, he's a good look for Sinestro and he would play of Ryan Reynolds quite well as mentor/student and archenemies. Again, this is just a rumor and could well be simply because Haley's a hot commodity who looks the part, but they could certainly go with worse choices. I know how excited Chad Webb is about the Green Lantern movie, so I know he'll be happy. Not as happy about the Deadpool film or Batman casting rumors, but close.
Laura Dern is a Little Focker
Laura Dern is joining the cast of Universal and Tribeca Prods.' latest "Meet the Parents" sequel. The movie, directed by Paul Weitz, is working under the title of "Little Fockers," but that might change. It reunites most of the main players from the previous movies, including Ben Stiller, Teri Polo, Robert De Niro, Blythe Danner and Owen Wilson. Jessica Alba also recently joined the cast.
Dern plays the headmistress of the elementary school that the Fockers' kids attend. Jane Rosenthal and Jay Roach are producing. John Hamburg rewrote the original script by Larry Stuckey. Universal's Tracy Falco and Maradith Frenkel are overseeing.
Dern won a Golden Globe this year for her performance in HBO's "Recount" and recently made a deal with the network to star in a pilot to be penned, produced and directed by Mike White.
Okay, even I admit that the title is already getting old as a joke, but these headlines practically write themselves folks. Laura Dern is a good actress who I'm always happy to see work, and I imagine she'll add some zest to the unnecessary Fockers sequel. I still feel like the movie's being made only because it's a cash cow and not because they are inspired by any great story, but if they are going to make it they are at least populating it with a cast that is good (the originals and Dern) or nice to look at (Alba). I won't completely write this one off due to the casting, although I can't say I'm particularly excited to see it. It will come out, it will make lots of money, and hopefully they'll stop there. Probably not, but we can hope.
True Blood Lovebirds Attend an Open House
"True Blood" and real-life lovers Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer will make their big-screen debut together in "Open House," a rep for Anna confirmed to Access Hollywood.
However, online reports have exaggerated their roles, the rep explained, noting that the two only have "tiny cameos" in the horror movie and never share a scene.
"The characters they play are never on screen together," the rep told Access. The film — which follows the story of a troubled couple who hold an open house with terrifying consequences — stars Brian Geraghty, Tricia Helfer and Rachel Blanchard. Andrew Paquin, Pacquin's brother, wrote and directed the film, which is slated for a 2010 release.
Casting these two in separate cameos is an ingenious move. True Blood has a lot of fans, yours truly included, and the duo are certainly bigger names that Helfer, Geraghty or Blanchard. They can show both of them in the trailer and that will attract immediate interest in a Drew Barrymore/Scream way. What the duo's characters do is already out there on the internet, but I won't spoil anything for people who don't want to know. Obviously, it's good to have an Academy Award-winning actress who's on one of the hottest shows on premium cable as a sister, and I just hope Andrew Paquin is as talented as his sister.
Sturgess and Dunst Go Upside Down
Jim Sturgess and Kristen Dunst have joined the cast of the sci-fi romance feature "Upside Down" for Onyx Films and Studio 37 reports Production Weekly
Juan Solanas helms the story where a humble and seemingly ordinary guy sees his childhood love now grown up and on television and vows to win her. The catch is that they live in an alternate reality, one where a complete other world floats inverted in the skies above and is just out of reach. He is on one side, she's on the other.
Sturgess beats out Emile Hirsch who was previously linked for the male lead role.
I'm a big Jim Sturgess fan, so that's why I included this news bit. The story smacks far too much of The Time Traveler's Wife to me somehow, though maybe that's just the "sci-fi romance" label. It's certainly a strange sort of set-up, and I think that the title is rather silly. Still, sci-fi romances often catch my eye so that and the presence of Sturgess means I'll probably be checking it out. I'm also happy to see Kristen Dunst doing something that doesn't involve webslingers, as she's a talented actress when she actually has something to do other than be saved by Peter Parker. I can see this as a potential bomb or even straight to video thing, but whatever the format I'm moderately interested in it.
And In "Thank God They Changed The Title" News...
When Wes Craven's latest fright flick arrives in theaters in 2010, it won't be called 25/8, a moniker it has held since the director began production. Instead, it is now entitled "My Soul to Take."
Craven broke the news via his Twitter account this morning. ShockTillYouDrop.com says that while the title was once apropos for the film, the term "25/8" is no longer used in the story so it wouldn't really make sense to call it that. Craven adds "25/8" has always been a working title.
Max Thierot, Denzel Whitaker and Shareeka Epps star in what is Craven's first film that he has written and directed since New Nightmare in the '90s. Thierot plays "Bug," a young man who is possibly being terrorized by his serial killer father sixteen years after his supposed death.
As I said in the headline, thank God. Wes Craven has made some wonderful horror films over the years (and some bad ones, but still), but 25/8 was a terrible title. Then again, I don't have a lot of hope that this will fall under the list of Craven's better films. A main character named Bug? Really? The basic plot is that Bug's serial killer has returned to kill the seven children who were born on the day he was killed fifteen years ago. I have to assume that's the seven children who were born on the same day who happen to live in the same town, otherwise said serial killer has a lot more than seven to kill. This movie was supposed to come out at the end of this year but is now a 2010 release, which is one of many to have suffered schedule changes this year. It's listed as "early" 2010, so I would assume February since that appears to be the new October in terms of horror. I'll have to see more before I get on board with this.
Shyamalan's Devil Finds Victims
Logan Marshall-Green, Jenny O'Hara, Jacob Vargas, Matt Craven, Bojana Novakovic, Bokeem Woodbine, Geoffrey Arend and Caroline Dhavernas have joined the cast of the supernatural thriller "Devil" for says The Hollywood Reporter.
M. Night Shyamalan penned the story, about a group of people trapped in an elevator (and one is the titular fallen angel) and is releasing the film under his 'The Night Chronicles' banner. He and Sam Mercer will produce.
John Erick Dowdle and Drew Dowdle ("Quarantine") are directing from a script by Brian Nelson. The group join the already cast Chris Messina in the project which beings shooting October 24th.
I've thought Shyamalan's strength was as a director and not a writer; his past few films have shown his lack of depth in the scripting department. This is why I have some hope for Avatar: The Last Airbender. So now we have a script by Shyamalan, directed by the people whose most well-known film is a shot-for-shot remake of a horror film that didn't live up to the original? Yeah, this has bad idea written all over it. The cast is a bunch of basically unknowns, and that doesn't help things much. I don't have a problem with new faces in Hollywood but a project this worrying can usually only be appeased by a good cast or a fantastic trailer. I can't rely on the first of those, so I'll have to wait for the second to see if my fears are justified.
Jason Voorhees To Become the next Predator
Actor Derek Mears officially confirmed rumors this weekend at a horror con that he has been cast in Robert Rodriguez's Predators. One can only presume that he'll be playing one of the many Predator warriors the sequel, shooting in Texas, has to offer.
We saw Mears earlier this year in Friday the 13th as Jason Voorhees. He's also appeared in The Hills Have Eyes 2 and Masters of Horror.
Predators finds stars Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Danny Trejo, Walton Goggins and Alice Braga being kidnapped and whisked away to the Predator home planet where they are hunted. Nimrod Antal directs.
First off, am I the only one who thinks that Derek Mears looks disturbingly like WWE Superstar Kane? Anyway, I think this is a good thing, as Mears did a pretty decent job as Jason, following in the Kane Hodder mold nicely. You need someone who can handle the Predators with a certain level of menace and skill, and I think that Mears is up there with Tyler Mane as people I could see pulling that off nicely. It's nice to see that these actors who play the monstrous roles are continuing to get work instead of falling to the wayside by virtue of CGI, and I don't mind this casting one bit.
Check below for some of the excellent work here on-site you should be reading if you haven't already:
Ask 411: Leonard Hayhurst covers the entire Attack of the Killer Tomatoes franchise, plus Pan & Scan vs. Letterbox, The King of Queens, football movies and more! Ten Deep: Owain Brimfield continues his run of the Top 50 Science Fiction Movies with numebrs forty through thirty-one! Around the World in 24 Frames: Len Archibald finishes his Luis Buñuel retrospective with The Exterminating Angel from 1962! The October Zombie-Thon: Trevor Snyder hits Day 19 by covering Otto; or, Up With Dead People!
And for shameless self-promotion, check out my work:
From The Great Capt. Smooth:
Where does your picture of DeVito come from?
The DeVito picture is from L.A. Confidential, the movie from which the news report is named after. DeVito's character Sig Hudgens operates Hush-Hush Magazine, a Hollywood dirt sheet. Thus, it was fitting to me that I use that as the end picture.
From Todd Vote:
"but Platinum Bay should also remember that it had the sixth biggest second weekend drop in history at a staggering 80.4 %. Out of major releases (aka 1,000+ theaters), only Gigli dropped harder. That has to make the studios wonder if the interest in a new one will be high. I can't imagine it will be very good, or very profitable, but we'll see."
Let us also remember that any r-rated slasher flick that can do nearly 40 million opening weekend, on a budget of 19 million is sure to get a sequel regardless of second week drop-off. I for one am more excited about another Friday than I am about that Nightmare remake
I absolutely agree with that, Todd. A huge opening on a minor budget guarantees a sequel, I'm just meaning that they have to hedge their bets on this one, because the first one worked due strictly to fan hype for Jason's return. The iffy reaction and poor second-weekend drop means that the second may not open nearly as well. But it will still probably be profitable. Then again, Jason Takes Manhattan was profitable but the studios still were (thankfully) hesitant to continue that particular storyline. So we'll see.
From neverAcquiesce:
Arrested Development is the single greatest comedy. Ever. Make it a priority to watch this ASAP as possible. Can't friggin wait for this movie.
So I've heard. It's in my Netflix queue now, so I'll see it soon enough. Thanks!
Welcome to the newest section of the Hush-Hush News Report: the Confidential Critic's Corner! Due to my having a rather robust Netflix account, I thought this would be a fun little feature to add. Each week, I'm going to offer quickie reviews of what I've watched from my Netflix queue, either DVD's that were sent to me or through the Watch Instantly feature that I've grown to love. Consider these the "The 411" summaries at the bottom of regular reviews. Some weeks it may be just a couple, some weeks it may be a whole host of movies. This week is a fairly decent selection, so let's hop right into it, shall we?
Altered: Written and directed by Eduardo Sanchez of The Blair Witch Project fame, this low-budget straight-to-video is a remarkably competent sci-fi horror film. Featuring some impressive special effects considering the budget--including a pretty nasty looking alien--the story of four survivors of an alien abduction who become wrapped up in revenge could have been a "so bad it's good" style film that aimed for cult horror or even camp comedy. Instead it shoots for something greater and hits more than it misses. The acting by Paul McCarthy-Boyington, Brad William Henke and Michael C. Williams (also of Blair Witch fame) is clichéd as the hillbilly trio, but Adam Kaufman gives a good turn as Wyatt and helps make this the pleasant surprise of the week. It's not a great film, but it is a decent one.
Final Rating: 6.5 out of 10
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance: I will admit to not having seen this, the first in Korean film master Chan-wook Park's famous "Vengeance Trilogy" before now. I was certainly missing out. It may not carry quite the same sort of attention-grabbing plot twist of Oldboy or the box office success of Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, but it is an excellent film in its own right with some excellent acting from Song Kang-ho and especially Shin Ha-kyun as the deaf-mute Ryu. The story of Ryu's vengeance when a plan to save his sick sister goes awry is harsh and unrelenting, and Byung-il Kim's cinematography is actually more interesting and dynamic than the work done by his predecessor in Oldboy. The film occasionally strays into some shots or scenes that don't live up to the whole of the film, but otherwise this is a great piece of work from a renowned director who deserves more attention from American audiences.
Final Rating: 8.0 out of 10
Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter: Where Altered takes care not to stray into "so bad it's good" territory, Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter revels in that fact. Made to be a modern-day exploitation film, it clearly is shooting for cult status and has risen to that level in some degree. Unfortunately, when compared to the true exploitation films, this one does not hold up. Cheap gags abound and don't always work, and a weak plot about the Lord and Savior coming to Earth to save the lesbians of Toronto from legions of the undead feels less outrageous and over-the-top than it does derivative. The acting is sub-par, even for B-movies. The film's biggest crime is being blandly bad as opposed to going all the way, and only a few fun sequences save this movie from being much more than a waste of time.
Final Rating: 4.0 out of 10
Masters of Horror: Imprint: In the history of Showtime's Masters of Horror anthology series, there were several hits and several misses. Only one piece was refused to be aired by Showtime, and it's no surprise that the episode in question belonged to the infamous Japanese horror maestro Takashi Miike. The twisted mind behind Ichi the Killer, Audition and other such films created a story about a man returning to Japan to save his lost girlfriend from prostitution but finds only the ghosts of the past. The story is effective and unwinds in layers of deception before the extreme situations begin. It must be said that this is not for the weak of heart, but those who appreciate Miike's work will find a lot to like here. One thing almost everyone will be able to agree on however is the poor acting of Billy Drago, who chews scenery as the lead like nobody's business and drags down what could have been a much better film. This is not one of Miike's best work and plays as exactly what it is—an episode of a horror anthology series—but it's worth checking out if your stomach is solid enough.
Final Rating: 7.5 out of 10
The Big Lebowski:The Big Lebowski is a film that has outgrown its quality by its reputation. While the Coen brothers' follow-up film to Fargo is a good film, it seems to have garnered an unassailable reputation. Certainly the performances by Jeff Bridges and John Goodman are very good and the wacky plot is engaging, it is a film with flaws. The film's quirky style is oversaturated and makes for several uneven moments. The dips into crazy dream sequences sometimes work and sometimes don't, and it has a shotgun approach that doesn't hold up to some of their better work like Fargo, No Country for Old Men, Barton Fink and O Brother, Where Art Thou?. The film is far more style than substance and while it works in some situations, it falls apart in others and that makes for a film that is merely good and not the Mecca of filmmaking that it seems to have been raised to.
Final Rating: 7.0 out of 10
This Film Is Not Yet Rated: This documentary by filmmaker Kirby Dick takes aim at the MPAA, taking the ratings board to task over the hypocrisy between big-budget and independent films, gay vs. straight sex scenes, gender sexual roles and more. With interviews from Darren Aronofsky, Maria Bello, American Psycho director Mary Haron, Kevin Smith, John Waters, Kimberly Pierce and Matt Stone among many others, the documentary paints a very compelling portrait of an inherently-flawed system that favors the studios over the filmmakers. Of particular interest is the investigation into who the anonymous board is, as well as the film's own garnering of an NC-17 rating which is documented in the eventual release of the film. For fans of cinema who have often wondered why certain movies get rated the way they do, this is a must-see.
Final Rating: 9.5 out of 10
The Times of Harvey Milk: The story of Harvey Milk was big news in 2008, thanks to Sean Penn's Oscar-winning portrayal of the slain gay rights activist and public servant in Gus Van Sant's film Milk. Much of that film's influence came from this documentary, directed by Rob Epstein and narrated by Harvey Fierstein. The wealth of archival footage is mixed with interviews of those who knew Milk at the time, and covers his rise from an activist in the gay Castro Street neighborhood of San Francisco into his election as America's first openly gay government official, and then his and San Francisco mayor George Moscone's assassinations at the hands of Dan White. The documentary skips over certain periods of Milk's life and is not as informative as might be hoped, but still offers a stirring portrait of a man who became a symbol for equal rights for sexual orientation.
Final Rating: 7.5 out of 10
The Hush-Hush Editorial Section: The Shoestring Budget Dilemma
Over the last few weeks, a phenomenon has hit the box office. Made on a shoestring budget, Paranormal Activity has captured the attention of filmgoers and has become the latest in low-budget success story to become an enormous hit for the studio lucky to pick it up. The film has been reviewed by our own Steve Gustafson for 411Mania to heaps of praise, and by our Movie Zone Editor Chad Webb in the latest (and, sadly, second-to-last) edition of his Big Screen Bulletin to somewhat more mild praise. Whatever the reviews, it's undeniable that this is a huge boon for Paramount Pictures who released it. To date it has yet to open in more than 759 theaters and yet it has garnered over $33 million to date, all on a $15,000 budget. That gives the film's profit margin, at the moment, a 224,780% return, third only to 2004's Tarnation which was made for $218 and the infamous Blair Witch Project which still holds the record at 354,614%.
Regardless of the movie's quality—which I cannot yet speak for—the success of Paranormal Activity in both commercial and critical aspects—Roger Ebert called it "an ingenious little horror film, so well made it's truly scary"—is something that the studios would do well to examine closely. Too often, studios have a tendency to throw huge amounts of money at a film expecting that simple cash investment will yield returns. In fact, that was the plan for Activity. Paramount, upon agreeing to finance the film at the insistence of no less than Steven Spielberg himself, was to have director Oren Peli remake the movie as a big-budget feature. Peli and producer Jason Blum saw the insanity behind this and managed to negotiate one-time screening into the contract to see how a real audience would react to the original film. The end result was that viewers began to walk out of the theater in the middle of the screening—not because they hated it, but allegedly because they were so frightened that they had to leave. That was the end of any big-budget remake thoughts, and the film was released as originally intended by the filmmakers. And the rest is history. In the current trend of expensive remakes, how refreshing is it to see that a film that avidly resisted being remade is blazing its way to the top of the box office?
Honestly, it would be nice to believe that this will change the minds of the Hollywood studios and they will start supporting the concept of independent film in earnest. I've written before about the state of independent film, and it is no secret that with the exception of Lionsgate, Summit Entertainment, the Weinstein Company and a few others, all of the "independent" studios are actually subsidiaries of the major film studios. While the films that Focus Features, Miramax, Sony Pictures Classics, Paramount Vantage, Rogue Pictures and others are often films outside of the mainstream, they are not what one would consider independent in a true sense and they often come with the same restrictions that working on a Universal, Fox or MGM film entail. It would be fantastic to say that the studios will start to promote these independent features in a new light and let the creative minds behind these films shine on a stage of their own choosing, the reality is much different. More likely, this will be viewed as a pleasant aberration in the movie industry and keep going their own way.
If I had a choice, I would make one change from this stick, and that would be putting an end to the tendency to remake films that have not yet seen an American audience. Several fantastic foreign films have been brought to domestic audiences—all bearing English scripts and Americanized plot twists, featuring casts of known actors (or hot young TV stars) and almost entirely inferior to their original source material. From the glut of Asian horror films that got remakes to films like 1993's The Vanishing (remade from the Dutch film Spoorloos), The Point of No Return (La Femme Nikita), Bangkok Dangerous and the Spanish horror film [REC] which was remade as Quarantine, the result is quite often a disappointment. Even the instant classic Swedish vampire film Let the Right One In is being remade as Let Me In, directed by Matt Reeves. Why is simply giving these films American releases such a terrifying thought? Are the studios afraid that audiences will reject the films if they don't have GQ-style actors and dumbed-down scripts? Or are they perhaps worried that instead of paying for their $170 million dollar crapfests like G.I. Joe or Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, they'll flock to the better films and take a risk on having to read a few subtitles?
Whatever the reason, they surely don't need to worry. Audiences will always go to what entices them. Some people love those blockbusters and will go see each one without complaints. They don't need "art" in their movies, they just want to be entertained for a couple hours. Others will seek out the smaller but more artistically satisfying films, with no desire to touch anything with the Hollywood stamp on it. And the rest of America, the larger portion of it, will go to whichever they feel like at the time, and take the Michael Bay, Jerry Bruckheimer and Stephen Sommers films alongside the Lars Von Trier, Paul Thomas Anderson and David Lynch movies. The markets are out there for both, and it's high time that Hollywood started to realize this and give the small-time features a chance. They never know…they may just have the biggest hit of their lives on their hands.
And that's all we have time for this week. Before we leave, it's time for the Random Video of the Week. This week we have the latest Mel Gibson film, Edge of Darkness. From the looks of things Mel has taken a page out of Liam Neeson's Taken playbook. It looks like it could be Gibson's return to form though, in his first film since 2006's highly disappointing Apocalypto. Check it out.
In my opinion, the reason we see mass marketed remakes of films like REC and Let the Right One In (pushed out the door within a year or two of the original's creation) is simple. We Americans are a truly and often patheticly xenophobic bunch. I'm sure the studios believe that they would see better returns on an American film than a Spanish or Swedish film, particularly if those films are in their native languages. And the studios are probably right. At least the silver lining is that foreign films are a lot more readily accessible on home video these days than they were even ten years ago.
Posted By: YepYep (Guest) on October 20, 2009 at 12:10 AM
Thanks for the picture info. As far as reasons for people wanting to see something like a G.I.JOE movie, I just wanted to see Snake Eyes kick some ass. It really has a lot to do with childhood. These are characters that people grew up with and have always wanted to see on the big screen. There is another reason: Geek is chic. I don't know when there has been a better time to proudly say that you are into geeky things. It's nice to see the former outcasts get a chance in the spotlight.
Posted By: The Great Capt. Smooth (Guest) on October 20, 2009 at 05:54 AM
Great column. I guess I liked The Big Lebowski a lot more than you did. The characters in this movie are the most relatable characters in any movie i've ever seen. Plus, how many movies have a religion based on it.
Posted By: Spaghett (Guest) on October 20, 2009 at 12:13 PM
Spaghett- there's more religions based on movies than you might think... just because you've never heard of them doesn't mean they aren't out there. Star Wars is an obvious one... but here's an interesting phrase:
KING KONG DIED FOR YOUR SINS
...think about it.
Oh, also Lebowski kicks ass, I don't know about people elevating it up like it's casablanca, but you know-- Monty Python & the Holy Grail is great too and that doesn't mean people think it's Citizen Kane.
Lebowski & other movies are given high regard not because they're masterpieces but because they're so damned entertaining.
When the "fun level" of a movie is a 10, it can afford to be imperfect in other ways and be justified in all the praise it gets (look at Ghostbusters)
Posted By: Guest#1067 (Guest) on October 20, 2009 at 03:08 PM
