Look At My Briefs -- 8/6/09

It's been a long time since I've been in school and yet I still get that odd, icky feeling this time of year that my summer vacation is almost over. The fact that I haven't taken a vacation this summer seems to have zero impact on that feeling. Luckily, I have discovered that the cure is to sit back in front of my computer and luxuriously read another edition of Look At My Briefs.

Variety reports that Leonardo DiCaprio has picked up the rights to "Little Red Riding Hood" under his Appian Way banner.

When I read that, I thought, "Someone actually owns the rights to Little Red Riding Hood? I wonder if my mom and dad could get sued for the number of times they told me that story when I was a kid UNLESS they secured the rights to do so." This led to an embarrassing phone call that started out as a discussion about the finer points of intellectual property rights and how they relate to reading bedtime stories to your kid and ended with my dad lamenting the fact that he'd raised an exceptionally stupid child. It turns out I could have spared myself the humiliation since the actual Variety article makes no mention of anyone purchasing any rights.

Turns out Leo Dio is working on what is purported be a darker version of the Red Riding Hood tale than most people are used to. I look forward to tight asses losing it over the idea that the Pure And Wonderful Children's Tale will be polluted by evil Hollywood even though, as the Variety article states, the story used to be very dark and vicious before the Brothers Grimm got hold of it and cleaned it up. In fact, Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves has already taken the Red Riding Hood tale and used it as a dark coming-of-age story.

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Wow, is it possible I was wrong about G.I. Joe? It's hard to argue with a 91% Tomatometer rating (as of this writing). I predicted that the movie would blow when I profiled it in Movies I Haven't Seen and, if it actually turns out to be something worth seeing, that will end my perfect record of predicting crappy movies. If I end up liking it, should I be honest and admit that fact here or should I uphold the strong internet tradition of firmly standing behind uninformed opinions no matter how much evidence comes along that the opinion was wrong? Decisions, decisions.

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I have not been a fan of Dollhouse but I did rent the first season DVD collection to see the unaired 13th episode titled "Epitaph One". It was an interesting episode and was meant to serve as the series finale if they got canceled though it hardly ended the story. It did tell you the ultimate purpose of the Dollhouse and what the eventual consequences of that purpose would be. Set ten years in the future, the personality imprinting technology used by the Dollhouse has radically advanced to a state where a few elites have imprinted most of the world's population. Those people are slaves and society is in ruins. It's nice to see that Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku had something in mind this whole time. Since they managed to get another season, here's hoping the series evolves from the dark, depressing Wrist Slasher of the Week it is now.

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I'm sure we've all heard that the Mayans thought time would end in 2012, but I wonder if the prophecy contained anything about all the crappy movies that event would inspire including this one. Oh well, only three...long...years till all that crap is proven false and we move on to the next doomsday prophecy.