Too lazy to read all the wonderful news our insightful crew scours the globe to bring you every day? Too outmoded to have an MP3 player for the podcast? Shame on you all! However, being the generous lot we are, welcome to news:blended, your weekly guide to the most interesting stories reported on Cinema Blend over the last seven days.
The so-called triumphant return of news:blended last week was marred by an unforeseen event; My inability to read a calendar properly. Worse, nobody noticed I reported some Saturday news as Friday news. Look I appreciate any mail I get, good or bad. We apologise for such shoddy journalism more befitting some of our rivals. I shall put it down to teething problems and move on. Good...
SATURDAY
Hot chick returns for torturous torture porn series
Because of my massive faux pas there's only one story left to report on for Saturday and that was of Shawnee Smith's return to the Saw franchise. I have to confess that, like Josh, I too watched Becker at least twice and I too only watched it because of my Shawnee Smith fascination. And the wonder that is Ted Danson's spray on toupee of course.
SUNDAY
It's rough, tough and don't take no remake shit from anyone.
Will they paint a naked dude with blue highlighter?
“Returning to the original source material”. Yes, now that we've completely expired our list of phrases less than 6 syllables long, this is the new term for remakes. The Coens are now getting in on the act, which is rather depressing considering they've made a career out of being one of the few faces of originality in mainstream Hollywood of late.
Continuing the remake theme, James Gunn is apparently wanting a slice of the Watchmen pie by remaking one of his old movies. Newsflash, despite the reviews you might have read and the box office receipts for a March movie you may have seen speaking to the contrary, Watchmen was a flop. Copying Watchmen with a five dollar budget will not enamour you to anyone.
MONDAY
Face/Off Ending Terminated.
”Zac Efron” sounds like a bad Hitchhiker's guide pun
When in doubt, listen to the internet. Granted Mark Zuckerman didn't listen to that advice when he screwed over Facebook's 174 million users the other week so he could make a few more bucks, but the makers of Terminator: Salvation certainly did. Apparently it took the reaction of online Terminator nerds to make them see how silly their original ending was. So they have changed it.
Something else that changed this week was the lead star of Footloose. Zac “I look like my own Team America puppet” Efron has apparently left the remake to pursue something less musical. Might I suggest street art as a human mannequin. Anything that gets this oddball guy off the big screen is fine by me.
TUESDAY
Kristen Bell movie? Yes. Veronica who movie? No.
A comic book adaptation more bizarre than Flash Gordon?
Tell me the last time a TV show made a good, successful transition to the big screen? Yeah, 1982, Wrath of Khan and it's been all down hill since there. Don't give me that Serenity crap, if nobody went to see it, it's not successful. So why people keep bleating for big screen adaptations of over-rated cancelled TV shows is anyone's guess. Move on, jeez.
Michel Gondry is such a messed up acid-trip style of director I'm surprised he's not carved a fortune in making kids TV instead of low budget movies. So with Gondry on the Green Hornet movie, the man himself has declared that all bets are off.
Oscar winner taking on next X-Men Smallville movie
Great cast, how about the story?
I always got the impression from little niggling things that Fox doesn't have much confidence in Wolverine. However, that hasn't stopped them hiring an Oscar-winning writer of the moment to pen a sequel. Of course I'm sure by the time the Fox execs get their hands on it, about the only thing that will resemble the original script is the title.
As much as I respect Ridley Scott the man has gone off the rails of late, making a bunch of movies that, while visually stunning as always, don't always hit the mark story wise. So despite an ever more prestigious cast, I can't help still wishing for the more interesting sounding original pitch of Robin Hood.
THURSDAY
Writer's self promotion wasn't so super, man.
Direct to rehab. Direct to jail. Now direct to cable.
While Mark Millar may be a well respected graphic novellist and a fellow Scot, I can't help feel that he's a little too much of a self publicist for his own good Which makes me wonder if his latest comments aren't a quiet retraction for overstating his involvement in the new Superman movie.
Lindsay Lohan's latest movie is going DTV? Or is it now DTDVD? Or DTDVD&BR? At any rate it shows just how much interest I as well as movie studios have in her latest projects that they are being tossed on to cable before even hitting the Blockbuster stands. How these lack of box office grosses are going to cut in to Ms Lohan's supply of party powder is still unclear.
FRIDAY
A glowing blue penis and sore asses make WB reconsider R-rated movies... er wait...
Pope a cap in yo' ass... Wait too much ass metaphor in these...
Poor Mike Judge. He is a great filmmaker but sadly his satire is often to clever for many studio execs to understand. Thus his movies get treated as second rate Without a Paddle style “comedies”. He's smarter than you and you know he's making fun of you and that makes you uncomfortable, so you lash out. It's understandable. But it's not fair.
Some might say that Mike Judge's movies get unfairly smeared. Also getting unfairly smeared this week was the Starship Enterprise. Presumably the marketing department were going for some subtle, artsy effect. Instead it now looks like they're trying to promote Star Trek using the image of an orgy under a sheet. Let me park my Starship in your Docking Bay, baby, oooh yeah.
That’s all for another, hopefully more carefully vetted news:blended, taking all the week's deep, insightful, carefully written, well researched news by our immensely talented team and distilling in to the equivalent of a social-networking status update. If you like what you read, leave a comment below, or get in touch. If you don't, well I guess you could always sign up to Christopher Walken's Twitter feed. It's funnier and shorter.
