Updating Old Sitcoms (An Admittedly Hack Topic)

Hollywood's obsessive penchant for remaking/rebooting/re-imagining even relatively newer movies (or, as it's called on the internet, childhood rape) has ramped up in recent years . This is to the dismay of many audience members who lambast the lack of creativity in cinema, despite the fact that you'll never see most of them in an art house theater, and who blissfully ignore that there have been good remakes like:

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Still, over the past several years we've seen returns to Clash of the Titans, The Karate Kid, Star Trek, Nightmare on Elm Street, Pink Panther, I Spit On Your Grave, Halloween, with more to come. In 2011, we can expect at least Footloose and Fright Night. There's also going to be a Big Momma's House 3, so keep your eyes open for that one.

Even more recently, television has gotten into the remake game.

2004's Battlestar: Galactica set the bar not just for television remakes, but science fiction shows in general (up until the crappy finale). In 2005, Russell T. Davies successfully regenerated the legendary, nearly 40-year-old series Doctor Who. Hawaii 5-0 returned this season on CBS as an immediate fan favorite. The CW has become dependent on the television remake with its versions of/sequels to Melrose Place, Beverly Hills 90210, and La Femme Nikita. Even previous mistakes got a second chance to fail, such as Rob Thomas' 2009 Cupid, which was received slightly less favorably than his 1998 version of the same series (7 aired episodes v. 14 aired episodes). And who can forget NBC's duel abortions of The Bionic Woman and Knight Rider?

A few weeks ago, Pushing Daisies' Bryan Fuller announced plans to remake The Munsters with more of a The Office/Modern Family spin. (Which I'm sure will be better than Tim Burton's The Addams Family. The man simply does not understand eroticism, and Gomez/Morticia might have been television's first highly sexualized couple. You'd want to watch them fuck.)

These reboots tend to follows a more “modern” (or postmodern) take on television. The shows are grittier, have a greater respect for continuity and ongoing storylines, are arguably smarter, and possess a much higher budget than their decades-ago counterparts.

However, for the most part, only dramas have been given the treatment. What about sitcoms?

I Dream of Jeannie

No longer the simple tale of a scantily clad servant desperate to please her astronaut master, Jeannie represents just one member of a much larger, quite extensive, universe of supernatural creatures. The complex mythology and history of Jeannie and the Jeannies will play a large role in the development of the series. The show's zaniness will be tempered with antagonistic spirits and considerable limits on Jeannie's powers. If the remake is still set in the 1960s, the space race and the communist fear plays a huge role in Major Nelson's life.

Additionally, Jeannie and Major Nelson's relationship, which will turn romantic fairly quickly, becomes one of epic destiny and TRUEST TRUE LOVE, forged in the annals of time.

(On the public front: people will swoon over Jelson, Major Nelson will be a teen heartthrob, and Nellows slash-fic will be crazy popular.)

Bewitched

Ignoring the incredibly misguided, but almost respectably crazy-in-concept, 2005 film, Bewitched is about a 1960s ad man who marries a hot blonde chick with issues. We know where this is going.

Bewitched 2010 does not need to change all that much from the original series, but the moral of the story will be vastly different. Even unlimited power and unlimited abilities cannot fully distract us or save us from the ennui and emptiness that is inherent in modern life. Sure Samantha can mess around with the laws of God and physics, but so what? Nothing ever changes.

At least not until season 3 when Samantha, fed up about everything, goes mad with power.

(On the public front: the internet will be outraged if Darren is recast. The very least the writers can do is make meta comments on it from time to time.)

Happy Days

Turns out the 1950s were not so happy. With our enlightened 21^st century eyes, we know that series and movies from the 1950s and 1960s were balls of lies. Even looking back at the 1950s from a 20-year window further perpetuated those untruths. (Curse you Garry Marshall for having nostalgia.) Sixty years later, producers can finally force the Cunninghams to deal with cultures clashes, post-war blues, racism, sexism, oppression, homosexuality, depression, and the tragic death/disappearance of their oldest son.

Probably not Clancy Brown.

Go balls out by ending the first episode with a music montage showing Potsy shooting dope in Arnold's basement and Fonzie being stabbed to death by some actual street toughs. You will have viewers for episode 2.

(On the public front, 1950s fashion might come back in vogue. Some people will cry over the show being America-hating liberal revisionist history that ignores the greatness of America; others will cry that it doesn't go far enough.)

Green Acres

Once a fish out of water tale about a city boy fulfilling his dream of moving to the country only to discover its full of hicks and incompetents, Green Acres 2010 presents the plight of the American farmer and small town America amidst monopolization, corporate farms, and organic farming.

In today's world of globalization, even Hooterville is not free from the internet, Best Buys, and other modern conveniences. Can the citizens retain their identity in the face of corporate colonization? When Evil Corporate Guy tries to buy the land from the Haneys and the Ziffels, can Oliver Wendell Holmes step up and become Hooterville's grand protector? Is Mrs. Oliver Wendell Holmes becoming part of Hooterville society charming, or a dangerous example of going native?

(On the public front, expect very special messages about the environment to be inserted into nearly every episode while the cast makes pleas to help some Green cause.)

Three's Company

It's doubtful that anyone can duplicate the sheer charm that enabled John Ritter to make a show based solely on misunderstandings last nearly a decade. Equally impressive is that the series went 172 episodes without “officially” hooking up Jack or Larry with any of the chicks. Today, networks would probably be very insistent on at least one love story happening.

Cool, sleazy ladies' man Larry Dallas might overstay his welcome. The Roepers will continue with lack-of-sex jokes, but will be good for at least two Viagra references an episode. Mr. Roeper will be accused of cyberbullying Jack due to comments on Jack's alleged homosexuality. Second landlord/social retard Mr. Furley will receive a tragic back story and become a man to be pitied, rather than laughed at- an offshoot of his bizarre dead cat speech from 1984's “Look What I Found.” And maybe we'll figure out what the fuck was up with Lana.

(On the public front, a modern Three's Company would quickly fall victim to the Shipper Wars. The internet will be taken over by Team Janet fighting Team Chrissy, but Team Terry all the way.)

The Andy Griffith Show

Oh how we hate those old television shows that present the past with any sort of fondness. If you're not ironically condemning them, what's the point? Sure everything was whitewashed, but that was the style at the time. Besides, it's not like many modern comedies present life in 2010 as shitty as it actually is.

Much like Twin Peaks' Harry S. Truman, small town sheriff Andy Taylor will be forced to look into the dark underbelly of Mayberry, North Carolina. A lot of horrible secrets lurk beneath the pleasant facade, and Andy must confront problems like Otis' alcoholism, his confusing attraction to Aunt Bea, Barney Fife's retardation, and the end of segregation. There will always be the old fishing hole, but the quiet introspective moments only serve to remind Andy about the death of a time gone by, and further morph into an embittered, hard-boiled police officer.

(On the public front, see Happy Days.)

Gilligan's Island

Thurston Howell III will be young, rich, and CW-pretty So will The Professor. And The Skipper. And probably Gilligan. Or they'll combine fat and stupid for Gilligan so that the least attractive qualities are concentrated in one unlikeable character.

Racist natives might be recast to be slightly less racist, and reimagined as an ongoing threat throughout the entire series.

(On the public front, people will be debating for the show's entire run what everything means, they they are stuck on the island, why The Professor can't fix the box (interesting fact, in an early episode, The Professor actually does invent a glue and they attempt to sail back but the glue doesn't hold), etc. At the end, it'll turn out that all theories meant nothing. The series finale will just be an attempt from the producers to make the audience cry to distract them from the fact that no questions were answered and nothing led to anything.)

Hogan's Heroes

(On the public front, outrage from special interest groups will cause this show to be canceled before its first airing.)

Dennis the Menace

Can a child still be a menace in 2010? With zero tolerance policies in schools, outdoor play vaguely a memory, and parents opting to medicate their children instead of actually parenting them, Dennis Mitchell must live in a world where his rambunctiousness is a sign of ADHD instead of a natural expression of boyish boyishness. Can one young boy fight against an oppressive system while dealing with constant allegations of elder abuse (Mr. Wilson) and sexual abuse (Margaret)?

Instead of being a fat little misfit, Dennis will have six pack abs and George Clooney charm. Maybe Jay North could play Mr. Wilson.

(On the public front, if the show obtains any popularity, news programs will call in “experts” to explain why Dennis is a bad role model, what The Mitchells can be doing better, and signs that your youngster is troubled.)

Coach

Although Coach is the most recent show on the list, it could benefit from the sequelization concept utilized by that shows like Doctor Who, 90210, and Melrose Place. With the massive rise in popularity of college football and fantasy football, Hayden Fox can return as a sports commentator where his no-holds-barred approach to life could run afoul of our more PC culture. Also, he can be accused of cyberbullying his daughter's closeted boyfriend Stuart.

(On the public front, FUN FACT: Jerry Van Dyke is still alive.)

SHORT REVIEW: Jonah Hex- A Call For a Re-Imagining/Reboot/Whatever

Superhero movies do not need to merely be action movies. Just because the protagonist wears a costume does not mean that these films are only meant to throw as many explosions and effects at us as possible. Superhero movies can become a genuine crime thriller (The Dark Knight), or an epic,(Watchmen), or a Lifetime movie about a stalker date rapist (Superman Returns).

Jonah Hex, the 2010 bomb staring Josh Brolin and Megan Fox, is a flat-out terrible movie. Yet, for a film that pretty much failed on every conceivable level (some casting (such as Brolin, Michael Fassbender, and Jeffery Dean Morgan) was okay), within the concept of Jonah Hex and the Hexverse lies the potential for a truly great film.

Note: I have never read a Jonah Hex comic, and my first introduction to the character was through the film.

(Brief background: Jonah Hex is a former Confederate soldier bounty hunter in the late 1800s terribly scarred on half his face. In the comics, he has no special powers, although he is an excellent marksman and tracker. In the movie, however, he can talk to the dead for a short period like that guy in Pushing Daisies.)

While the talking to the dead angle of his character is a cinematic invention, it makes you wonder about a Jonah Hex film done as a respectable supernatural western.

If you look at the history of the genre, the great Westerns never move quickly, an idea that the 80-minute Jonah Hex never bothered to understand. Films like The Searchers (and other John Ford films), The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (and other spaghetti Westerns), The Wild Bunch, or the post-Unforgiven series of modern Westerns, bide their time. The films are as much about the ambiance of the landscape and the scenic vistas as whatever quest the anti-hero protagonist undertakes. After all, when all you have is a horse and a vast terrain in front of you, time basically becomes irrelevant. And, while these films had gun fights and the occasional dynamite-caused poof of black smoke, simply shooting a lantern didn't make shit explode, as in this film.

(A minor complaint but the climax of Jonah Hex takes place on a boat and anyone who knows anything about the Western genre knows that it's the railroad that the true enemy.)

A supernatural angle should be less about fighting ghosts and goblins as though Jonah Hex was Ash from the Evil Dead series, but more about mysticism, spirits, and how the life after death surrounds us at all times.

And there is one person who would be perfect for this sort of film: Nick Cave.

Listeners of the songwriter/singer know how well he uses dark, vivid imagery of death and other morbid subjects. And, equally important, his history with the cinema shows a definite attraction to the Western.

The Proposition, which he scripted, is probably the best Western of the past decade. Along with Warren Ellis, Cave co-wrote the hauntingly beautiful score to 2007's underrated Western The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford.

Other films that Cave has been linked to as a screenwriter include a reboot of The Crow, and a bizarre yet interesting sounding sequel to Gladiator that finds Maximus contending with Roman Gods and reincarnation. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/may/06/nick-cave-rejected-gladiator-script

In the coming years, plenty of big named comic book heroes will be getting a second shot at fame. Reboots include Spider-Man (starring Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, and Rhys Ifans), Superman (directed by Zack Snyder), The Fantastic Four, Daredevil, and we've already seen The Hulk attempt big screen success twice.

With so many others getting chances, why not give Jonah Hex a second go-around?A film combining the slow, methodological approach of the Western with an intrinsic understanding of the darkness of mortality, could be among the top films to showcase the untapped versatility of the comic book/superhero genre.

SHORT REVIEW: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Oliver Stone continues to hole up in mediocrity with the 2010 sequel to his 1980s classic Wall Street, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (the “money never sleeps” part really doesn't make sense even after the film. You'd think it would be about global markets and the internet, but no. And it could be referencing New York City but The Big Apple is barely a setting).

Set several years after the end of Wall Street, Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), recently released from prison, has written an ambiguously successful book (“Is Greed Good?”) about the scandal, and...

Well for starters, the main character in Wall Street 2 is not Gekko but junior stockbroker Jacob Moore (Shia LeBeouf). Jacob occupies the same role Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) did in the first film. However, for a main character in any movie let alone a Wall Street film, Jacob is far too good.

Jacob does not seem driven by the greedy excesses that drive a lot of people into entering the financial industry; he seems to do it because he likes investing in businesses. More than that, he likes investing in green technology from people who genuinely want to do good for the world, and not those who like taking advantage of saps. A big portion of his storyline revolves around getting funding for a a company building some sort of super energy laser (or, as I like to call it, Super Death Ray, Inc.).

He's also a child prodigy, who discussed businesses from a very young age while caddying for stock legend/father figure Louis Zabel (Frank Langella, giving the only halfway decent performance in the film).

And he came from humble beginnings with his mother (Susan Sarandon) who toiled long hours as a nurse. (In the film, she switched professions to work as a house flipper. She suffers when the market goes to shit in a plot line that could have easily been excised.)

He's also dating Gekko's daughter, Winnie (Carey Mulligan, remarkably bad after her impressive turn in An Education), who hates her father for ruining the family. Jacob, however, loves her unconditionally, and the first thing he does when he gets a nearly $1.5 million bonus from Zabel is buy her an engagement ring. Winnie works as a blogger-journalist for a non-profit blog that she wants to use to save the world.

(Is the point supposed to be that people in their 20s are more socially conscious and less obsessed with greed and status than they were in the 1980s? Because that is seriously not true.)

And he ride motorcycles, which I guess makes him cool.

When the film begins, Jacob Moore is working at Zabel's investment firm as a junior stockbroker. The stock of the high profile firm tanks and Bretton James (Josh Brolin), evilly offers to buy the firm out for pennies on the dollar in an evil wood paneled room of evil financial and government guys. Zabel, having no choice, agrees. Then he jumps in front of a train.

After a brief period of mourning, Jacob sees Gekko at a speaking engagement promoting his book. In his speech, Gekko lambasts the economy, over-leveraging, and all those other economic terms that people kind of know but if pressed for details would stutter until they blame either Bush or Obama.

Telling Gekko that he is dating his daughter, Jacob manages to form a relationship with the disgraced stockbroker. Gekko teaches Jacob about how his time in prison taught him that time is the most important commodity, how family is crucial, etc., etc., etc. He also informs Jacob that Bretton James was acting out a personal vendetta against Zabel, which is why he destroyed Zabel's company leading to Zable's death. Ever loyal to his one-time father figure, Jacob starts a rumor about James company which fucks with the stocks. This warning shot gets Brolin’s attention, and he hires Jacob to be his right hand man. (Bretton, who didn't exist in Wall Street 1, turns out to be most responsible for ratting Gekko out to the feds in a wacky plot twist.)

This is where the film could have possibly gone, and maybe even worked. (Note the words could and possibly.) Wall Street 2 might have been Platoon meets Wall Street, Jacob's soul is being fought over between the new Zen Gekko and unscrupulous trader Bretton, like Charlie Sheen between Sgts. Barnes and Elias. (Of course it would help if Jacob wasn’t practically a saint himself but, like I said, could, not would.)

The film continues along these line for about 2/3 of its two-and-a-half hour running time. Gekko remains decent, contemplative, and, after about an hour and a half, Gekko finally reconnects with his daughter. It seems as good a place as any for the film to begin to wrap up.

But then the film changes completely.

The stock market crash from a couple of years ago hits. Yet, with the exception of another wood-paneled-room meeting where people in expensive suits throw around the term “too big to fail,” the crash doesn't seem to impact any of the main characters. Even the day the crash hits, Jacob is taken to Bretton's estate to participate in a motorcycle race. After Jacob wins, he tells Bretton to go fuck himself and loses his job. (This probably would have happened without the crash.)

Elsewhere, Gekko's character also changes. For most of the film, he seems a genuinely changed man, but it turns out that he gave Winnie a $100 million trust fund held in Switzerland that she doesn’t even want. (The bitch.) She, instead, plans to give it to charity and Jacob convinces her to give it to Super Death Ray, Inc. Gekko also needs to sign for the release of the funds, and he promises Jacob that he’ll give the money to the company.

He doesn’t.

Gekko makes a complete heel turn and steals the money. Winnie breaks up with Jacob, and Gekko rebuilds his business empire. Could the entire attempt to reconnect with his daughter have been a scheme just to get her money? Possibly, but...

My theory: the writers realized that they weren't getting a lot of use out of Gekko in the first portion of the movie. They had good use of him as a relaxed guy, popping in every once in awhile to offer some guidance, like Obi-Wan Kenobi, but Gekko is the most famous part of the Wall Street films. Everyone remembers him. People who don’t know anything else about Wall Street remembers there was some evil guy named Gekko, he liked money, said 'greed was good', and wore three-piece suits.

So, in what I can only assume to be a “satisfy the idiots in the audience” move, they had to switch gears. Gekko suddenly takes center stage as a evil, sinister figure, practically a mustache-twirling villain. Give the people what they want: a rich guy smoking a cigar wearing suspenders while looking at stock prices. Gekko did not become the Gekko from Wall Street, he became the Gekko that people who never saw/don't remember Wall Street assumed he was.

Unfortunately, about halfway through this final third, the writers remembered that people like Gekko. People want to see Gekko. Gekko is the big sell. In another what I can only assume to be “satisfy the idiots in the audience” move, Gekko twists again! Audiences would not want to see the fan favorite character go back to prison! But audiences would not want to see him close out the film evil either. How to remedy this?

The film wraps up by allowing Gekko to have a second redemption plotline where he re-reunites with Winnie, reunites Jacob with Winnie, and gives the necessary funding to Super Death Ray, Inc. And he still has his millions from his new investment firm in England. And Winnie gets the story on Bretton James, thus allowing her social justice blog to explode in prominence. And Bretton James is about to be indicted. It's a ridiculously happy ending with the credits sequence at Winnie/Jacob's son's first birthday party.

Not Footage From Actual Film

The first Wall Street was a dark movie. It did not have a happy ending. As much as everyone loved (or hated to love or loved to hate or whatever) Gekko, and despite how cool he was, he was the bad guy. His greed brought him down. Similarly, even though Bud Fox does the “right” thing at the end and saves the airline and cooperates with the feds, he too will face a prison term.

Yet Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps abandons any sort of lesson, any sort of point in favor of the worst excesses of The Hollywood Ending. If the sequel wanted to continue down the path set by the first one, the character's vices would be their respective downfalls. Or, if the sequel wanted to make a Bret Easton Ellis/American Psycho-esque point about how despite all the back dealing and robbery and insider trading and suicide-causing acts, nobody cares as long as money is made, it could have easily done that...but it didn't. If the film really wanted the stupid birthday party ending, it shouldn't have bothered with Gekko's relapse into evil.

Instead, the film ends with the unsatisfying and disappointing realization that Gordon Gekko has been turned into a mass friendly character, and even by going back to the lucrative well, Oliver Stone still hasn't found whatever it was that made him so notable in the 1980s and 1990s.

TRAILER REPORT: Unstoppable

Tony Scott.

The man who directed True Romance,

the erotically charged David Bowie vampire thriller The Hunger,

and the homoerotically charged Tom Cruise Air Force thriller Top Gun

Of course, it's not like his brother, Ridley, has lived up to the potential he showed in Alien and Blade Runner. (Yes, I went there Gladiator and Black Hawk Down fans.)

And while Tony Scott would probably never make anyone's Best Directors list, his direction was perfectly suitable and created some memorable films. Yet, around the time of Enemy of the State (1998), Tony Scott's style changed into something different. He became a fast paced action director, in the bad way. Quick cuts and extreme close-ups filmed with the graininess of a cheap 1990s digital camcorder began to define Scott's work, fully forming in 2004's Man on Fire and getting driven to excess 2005's Domino.

In November 2010, Tony Scott continues this trend with Unstoppable. Starring old stand-by Denzel Washington (star of three Scott's last four films: 2004's Man on Fire, 2006's Deja Vu, 2009's The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3) and new Captain Kirk Chris Pine, Unstoppable is about a train. … AND THIS TRAIN IS OUT OF CONTROL!!!!!!!!!!!!

The trailer begins introducing young go-getter Chris Pine and weathered veteran Denzel Washington who works at some sort of train station. After exchanging hack barbs (“I just don't like working in a damned day care center.” “I don't like working in a retirement home”) with a couple of other train guys, we learn that it's Chris Pine's training day.

Monkey in an Engineer's Outfit's Got Nothing On Me

(It's not racist, it's a riff on the King Kong line.)

(He won the damned Oscar.)

Like in most buddy cop films, we learn that Chris Pine has something of a wife, and Denzel Washington has two daughters. Combined with the shot of them watching Denzel being all action hero on the news near the end of the trailer and Denzel being an “average” guy who ends up being a superman, I'm pretty sure his character went through the exact same thing in Pelham.

But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. After all, we need a plot! There's a train of adorrrrrrrrrrrrrable children also riding the rails! These kids have the level of adorability that I'm relatively sure Sam Raimi made fun of in Spider-Man on the Roosevelt Island tram.

Then a giant train goes VROOOOOOOOM.

Cut to Rosario Dawson (star of one of the worst sequels of all time- Clerks 2) talking to train employee/half-wits Ethan Suplee (star of underrated follow-up and cult comedy classic- Mallrats) and some other guy. She explains the movie's plot.

Rosario Dawson: “We have an unmanned train rolling into a highly populated area with no air brakes...?”

Ethan: “Yeah.”

It gets worse...

There's an Evil White Corporate Guy.

Evil White Corporate Guy: “What do we have to worry about in terms of cargo?”

Rosario “ Eight freight cars of hazardous chemicals. We're not just talking about a train, we're talking about a missile the size of a Chrysler building!!”

Didn't Rob Lowe star in this as a TV movie on NBC?

It gets worse

Denzel: “I need to know where that train is!”

Guy: “We're not sure!”

Denzel in his classic semi-sarcastic/semi-serious manner: “You're not sure? Well find out!”

It gets worse

Ethan Suplee's Friend: “It gets worse.”

Guy: “I got 150 students coming in on some field trip!”

Yes, now the adorrrrrrrrrrable children are in danger.

At this point, you expect to hear about how the children are disabled in some way

and that there are also puppies on the track

and those puppies are the guardians for new born kitties...

...and those kittens are being sent to an orphanage...

run by nuns.

But not the types of nuns who hate gay people!

Eventually, Denzel and Chris Pine decide to go on a suicide mission because it's what people do in movies like this but...

It gets worse

Evil White Corporate Guy (because it's always an evil white corporate guy) “is not risking this company just because some engineer wants to play hero!” Of course Evil White Corporate Guy must protect the profits! Look at Evil White Corporate Guy up there in his Evil White Corporate Tower doing Evil White Corporate Things, far away from the 20-45 mile event radius where if the train crashes EVERYBODY DIES.

And then the trailer shows a montage of the giant chase for the train. A big mess of cop cars that flip over several times.

Helicopters in danger. Guys hanging from helicopters that slam into trains. In some way it's like Airport 1975.

Denzel pulls out the “tell my wife and children I love them!!!!!”

Explosions.

More explosions.

And even more explosions!

And it ends with the trademark Denzel laugh.

Much like the rest of Tony Scott's filmography Unstoppable seems like another trite, forgettable action film. His films over the past decade or so have never really been major hits, usually falling in the mid-$60 millions (Man on Fire was his biggest success with $77 million; Domino his biggest failure at $10 million- maybe that's why he feels the need to include Denzel Washington in everything), and Unstoppable will likely fall in the mid-$60s as well. Opening November 12 it faces competition from alien invasion thriller Skyline (also 11/12), Paul Haggis' Russell Crowe/Liam Neeson prison escape drama The Next Three Days (11/19), and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollow Part 1 (11/19).