OK, so we're a day late, but I spent most of the weekend in bed, OK. Some people choose to go off sick and curl up in front of the TV the minute they get a sniffle, I prefer to try and work an illness out of me unless I physically can't move myself. It's probably a wildly stupid plan that will one day see me pass out on the job, but that's me I guess. So in between work shifts I've been mainly confined to crawling around feeling sorry for myself instead of working on my side projects. Mix in a near disaster last night where I thought I'd lost all the work I had done and here we are 24 hours later, fit, healthy and no longer dog tired.
The Choice Of A New Generation
So this week I learned that close friends from my school days are now expecting their first child. This has prompted a weird unquantifiable feeling in me, which makes me dread the magnitude of how I'm going to feel the day the love of my life turns round and tells me that a mini Wood is on the way. On the other hand, I won a bet placed at the couple's wedding over this, so some people now owe me plenty of money I can invest in buying them gifts for their upcoming familial addition. It's also made me realise that the next generation of movie-goers is now well and truly on the way. That one day it's going to be the kids of me and my friends that are going to be the ones marketed to and given a whole different kind of movie to the ones myself and the majority of the good people at CB grew up with. Two things worry me. Just looking at the trailers this week alone, what kinda crap are Hollywood going to be touting to my kids by then. And, will my kids like ET? They're going to be growing up with movies being made in a most likely Spielberg free zone at that time. Will they mock their old man and his love for that stupid old movie shot on stupid film instead of DV about a boy and a stupid rubber alien? Who knows, but with the new generation on the horizon, I can only hope for more Pixar and less Disney in our lives. It's a start.
Email me with gift ideas for expectant mothers
Coming soon to a theatre near you...
A Scanner Darkly
Released: 16th September 2005
Whoa. It's Ted dude, but he's like, all a cartoon and shit. Most non-heinous! Quite what Richard Linklater smoked back in his youth is anyone's guess, though Dazed and Confused might give a few hints. It might also explain the bizarre decision he made regarding his adaptation of the Philip K. Dick novel. The movie you see, has been filmed entirely in live-action, on sets etc, only in post-production they've gone all Bakashi on your ass and turned every live action cell into an animation cell instead, turning the live action movie into an anime wannabe. It looks weird in the trailer, not sure how it will pan out in a full feature, though all the hardcore nuts are insisting it's the only way to translate the schizophrenic muddled drugged out world of the book. To me it smells a little of the Sky Captain of 2005. Nice idea + neat gimmick = disappointing result. I'm sure anime nuts will lap it up though. The rest of us will probably approach it with some measured caution.
Click here to get a cool cel-shaded wardrobe...
House of Wax
Released: 6th May 2005
It seems that the crappy remake feature has replaced my naughty trailer feature, which means for someone who hates 99% of remakes with justifiable good reason and loves smut equally with good reason, this column is becoming like toe-nail extraction therapy. House Of Wax is a remake of a 1950s horror flick with the big daddy of horror movies Vincent Price. What it did have was an interesting premise - a mad sculptor starts using real humans covered in wax to rebuild his damaged museum. What it didn't do was use the "people covered in wax" angle simply to put a different spin on the worst of worst "Hooded killer with big knives stalks retarded teenagers" plot device. Which is what this is. The best thing about this movie? Elisha Cuthbert running in a small white top. A lot. The worst thing? Paris "Cheap Skankwhore" Hilton who can't even deliver her single four word line in the trailer convincingly.
Click here to imagine someone WOULD really kill Paris Hilton with molten wax...
Stealth
Released: 29th July 2005
Rob Cohen has never been the worlds most respectable director. He makes OTT trash, even when making a bio-pic of one the martial arts' greatest legends, but it's occasionally enjoyable trash, even in the case of the bio-pic of one the martial arts' greatest legends. This... well this is something else. Let me take you on a magical journey and imagine if you will a vision. Take Top Gun, but now Maverick is black, Goose is a woman, and they all fly cool CGI stealth fighters. Now imagine the time comes when they get replaced by the Navy's newst creation - Max from Flight of the Navigator. Now indulge me if you will, that this Max gets fried by lightning and morphs into WOPR from WarGames, decides to go on a rampage and try and start a nuclear war. It's up to said Power Rangers: Top Gun to stop it before it completes it's deadly objective. I wish I was joking. Go watch for yourself and see that I'm not. I demand Jamie Foxx be striken from Sunday's nominee lists.
Click here to watch all the silliness unfold...
The Cave
Released: 19th August 2005
Just like in my reviewing career, so it seems here I am doomed to a life of covering mainly crappy horror. Yes folks, it's more PG-13 rated fun starring nobody particularly famous but a few faces you'll recognise but not remember where from. Maybe I'm just becoming old and cynical but this tale of a group of cave explorers who discover that in the worlds largest cave system exists a bunch of nobbly CGI bats and fish who want to eat them just ain't cutting it. Is it the continued annoying insincerity of the actors? Is it the generic CGI beasties? Is it me just being an old fart who should lighten up and go with the ride for once? Hey, I thought the Fantastic Four trailer looked like it could be crappy but a lot of fun, so I guess all hope isn't lost.
Click here to explore your fear of the dark...
Don't Move
Released: 27th May 2005
Todays cultural section of Trailer Trash brings you some quality Spanish entertainment. Or at least the possibility of reading a bunch of subtitled bollocks just to see Penelope Cruz naked. Penelope Cruz naked in spanish movies is nothing new, she's been doing that consistently since she was 17. Here she actually looks not much like herself at all and has this weird blend of being occasionally skanky, occasionally attractive and general creepy looking. As the trailer shows you repeatedly though, the story of a man in a hospital waiting room, recalling a passionate affair has garnered rave reviews from people you've never heard of and numerous awards from bodies you don't care about. Of course you don't. It hasn't received a CB award, so it can't be that good, can it.
Click here to watch boring Spanish drama...
The Passion of the Christ Recut
Released: 11th March 2005
This must rate as the most pointless exercise in bible-basher-baiting, yet you gotta give it to Mel, he knows his audience. Find an excuse to re-release The Passion in theatres at Easter time and the devout following will come, lest the Lord strike them down for not enduring it! No extra snippets of the man. No extended scenes of characterization. Just another 10 minutes or so of extra gore, which means alongside the humble God fearers will no doubt be a bunch of gorefiends, looking to see what extra "visceral thrills" are on offer. Do yourself a favor. Go rent Last Temptation instead.
Click here to save your eternal soul from damnation...
STOP PRESS: War Of The Worlds
Released: 29th June 2005
Konichiwa. Sensei Wood brings you a bonus to the delayed edition of Trailer Trash. Just hitting the internet this morning is a look at the Japanese trailer for Spielberg's highly-anticipated and slightly hated adaptation of Wells. To be fair I'm conning you, it's simply a variation of the Superbowl spot, only with more angsty crowd-shots and a cool Japanese voice-over. Warning though, it's in a horrible streaming Windows Media format.
