Look At My Briefs -- 2/11/10

Since I assume the whole planet is like me, you all must have also had an extremely busy week. What better way to start winding down for the weekend than to read another edition of my brief comments on various subjects I like to call Look At My Briefs.

I'm going to ask one thing and one thing only of the new remake of The Wolfman and that is it must include the line, "Stay off the moors." After seven decades, you'd think the word would have gotten out and people would have stopped going to the moors by now but here we are with another movie about some goob who ignored perfectly good advice and is now a werewolf. It's this same mindset that keeps people going to Camp Crystal Lake again and again.

It's just great to see that Stan Lee is not only still alive but still vital and active in creating new projects for us to enjoy. Even if it sucks, I'll still be glad he did it.

Speaking of guys who aren't dead, Omar Sharif is not only still alive but set to play the title role in a new King Lear adaptation. Honestly, he's one of these guys I would have sworn died ten years ago at least. This is what happens when you lead a graceful and dignified celebrity existence. No one talks about you and people think you're dead. He should drunkenly plow a Ferrari into an Italian fountain or knock up a 17 year old. He'd probably get more work.

There are too many remakes these days. Hell, I've said that before which means this post itself is a remake. That being said, The Black Hole is a movie that should be remade. It was a dull movie with long, boring pauses and actors, most of whom were well known professionals, more or less sleep walking through their performances. It also had some of the stupidest special effects ever put on film up to and including a black hole that looked like a giant sparkling toilet bowl. By all means, remake this and leave Die Hard and Close Encounters of the Third Kind alone.

You can also add Dune to that previous list. Sure, the movie wasn't all that great and would easily fall into the category "Mediocre Films That Should Be Redone" except for one thing: Dune is unfilmable. The only way to do justice to a book that I personally think of as one of the 20th century's great novels would probably be to shoot it as a trilogy adding up to 9 or 10 hours. Since no one is trying to do that, any attempt to film Dune is a waste of time. If you think a Dune film adaptation would suck, wait till they start trying to film the sequels. Ugh.

Roger Ebert is very active on Twitter and he's posted various comments on Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Convention over the past week. This, of course, brought him to the attention of Big Hollywood. Big Hollywood is a website of film critics who give political opinions so, naturally, they're outraged that a film critic dared to voice his political opinion. Their editor, John Nolte, and regular contributor Pam Meister have both expressed their outrage. They also both used the old Shut Up And Sing argument against Ebert. Shut Up And Sing is something you say when a celebrity voices a political opinion and you then say, "I don't want to hear these celebrities' opinions. Just shut up and sing/act/write/whatever the hell it is you do." They don't mean it, of course. When they say they don't want to hear your opinions, they mean they don't want to hear opinions they don't like. Had Ebert called for Obama's impeachment or said that tax cuts increase revenues, the people now telling him to shut up would be lauding him for his courage.

I agree with AICN that The Last Airbender trailer looks pretty good. Speaking as the one guy on the planet who liked The Happening, it would be awesome if M. Night Shyamalan could make a comeback though I'm worried that, if it's a hit, he'll use his newfound clout to make The Village 2.