Why sequels are ruining movies

"Everytime we needed money we robbed the airport. For us it was
better than CitiBank." It seems that movie executives have taken a
line from Henry Hill of Goodfellas and every time they have no good
ideas for a new film, they just dust off an old franchise and make a
sequel.

As punishment for Saw III, The Ring 2, Scary Movie 4, Bad Boys 2,
Rocky Balboa, Pirates of the Caribbean 2 (I know some people actually
liked it), Jaws The Revenge, the thought that Battlefield Earth 2 was
a good idea (lucky it was panned) and most things sequel, I propose
that Hollywood has to go through one full year of not making anything
that resembles a sequel. That means: no continuing stories, no
traditional sequels, no "reimaginings" or anything else that really
just means another movie with the same title.

Now I'm not even completely anti-sequel. I've liked the Indiana Jones series, the Die Hard series and even films as recently as Spiderman 2 and Batman: Begins. But the sequel train has gotten far too long and now it seems that if there isn't at least the POTENTIAL for a sequel(s), then there is very little chance at getting a movie made. Here are a list of sequels currently in various stages of production: Blue Streak 2, Back to the Future 4, Alien 5, American Psycho 2, Superman Whatever, The Dark Knight (Batman), Spiderman 3, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Rambo 4, Predator 3, Jurassic Park 4, Indiana Jones 4, the 93rd Harry Potter, Zoolander 2, Hostel 2, Star Trek, Big Momma's House 2, Caddyshack 3 (no, seriously), Gladiator 2, Daredevil
2, Men in Black 3, Romancing the Stone 3, Rush Hour 3, Terminator 4,
Sin City 2, True Lies 2, Under Siege 3 and more on their way - trust
me.

I have less of a problem with movies like Harry Potter because they
are based upon books that have many different parts to them, so making
a movie isn't a stretch at all. However, movies like Predator 3,
Rambo, Rocky Balboa and Under Siege 3 were all movie franchises that
were dusted off after years of being finished just because sequels
have somewhat of a built-in audience and are relatively predictable
assets for the bean-counters of Hollywood. Once in a while you'll get
lucky and a sequel will be very good, but compared with the drudgery
of the rest of the sequels that make it to multiplexes, sequels as a
whole are horrible – think David Caruso, in CSI: Miami. Movie sequels
need to be stopped – or at least minimized before Gigli 2 hits
theaters.

Maybe an Oscar nomination for Borat?

The biggest surprise of the year has to be the sensation of Borat.
For those who have liked the character for a while, maybe it shouldn't
come as that much of a surprise, but a recent announcement that the LA
and San Francisco critics both picked Sacha Baron Cohen as the best
actor of 2006 absolutely shocked me. With major critics from major
markets giving props to Cohen, there is now buzz that he might even
have an outside chance at getting nominated for an Oscar. Let me
repeat that. AN OSCAR. Though it's starting to look like Forrest
Whitaker might be able to start polishing the golden statuette for his
portrayal of a Ugandan dictator in "The Last King of Scotland," just
getting Cohen nominated would be unbelievable. Imagine what Cohen
could do with this. I can envision him stumbling over members of the
audience, showing pictures of his sister (the number four prostitute
in Kazakhstan) to people in tuxedos and Gucci dresses, muttering
anti-Semitic remarks to all the wrong people – the potential is
endless.

Borat would have a red carpet full of actors and actresses, who know
what game he's playing, yet because of the cameras that will be on
them, will be almost forced to comment. Of course, he could always
just show up not in character, but how could Cohen nix such an
opportunity? Unfortunately, the Academy Awards has become nothing
more than a display of vanity from personalities who've been
systematically trained to spit out dialogue that seems to have been
siphoned through a public relations firm first. Borat would have a
field day.

If those who pull together the Oscars are smart at all, they should
even have him give out an award or introduce a special segment. He
could probably make Sound Editing the most entertaining and
interesting part of the night fairly easily. And just imagine the
kind of conversation he could have with Sean Penn.

Is Jurassic Park turning into another series holding on too long? Spielberg and Knightley rumored to work on Jurassic Park IV.

My sister's dragged me to see Pride and Prejudice – a movie that I had
no interest in seeing and who's main actress, Knightley, I wasn't a
huge fan of no matter how hot she is. Well, two hours later, I had a
different view on both the movie and on Knightley, as she proved that
she can act and the movie was surprisingly good. Now it looks like
she might be in Jurassic Park IV, which should bless audiences
sometime in 2008. Way to go Kiera.

So they're going to make a Jurassic Park IV. OF COURSE they are.
It's this simple: Dinosaurs on screen make money. Luckily, it seems
that Steven Spielberg has once again opted out of directing it, as he
did with Jurassic Park III, though he will have a role in it most
likely as a producer. So it looks like Spielberg is participating in
a series that could go the way the whole Jaws series ended up. By the
way, did anyone actually see Jaws the Revenge? The last installment
of Jaws based on a man-eating Great White who followed, yes FOLLOWED, the main character from the northeast all the way down to Bahamas to stalk the Brody family. The
worst part – the movie is worse than the plot sounds.

It seems that Jaws and Jurassic Park are practically mirroring each
other. Jaws was a great ground-breaking movie and so was Jurassic
Park. Though Spielberg had little to nothing to do with the Jaws
series after the first one, it turned into one of the worst movie
series' I can think of as both the third and fourth installment were
so bad that accurate adjectives haven't been created yet. Michael
Caine was blackmailed - ok not really – into being a main character in the fourth one and even had to miss the Oscars, in which he won best supporting actor for Hannah and Her Sisters, because of filming
obligations to Jaws The Revenge. Before something like this happens
to someone in the Jurassic Park franchise, I was hoping it would have ended – though I'm not sure if they could make a movie quite as bad as Jaws The Revenge even if they tried, but I've been wrong before.

I like Spielberg. He's made so many great films it's hard to name
them all and he still seems on top of his game with recent releases
like "War of the Worlds," and "Munich." A lot of people panned "War
of the Worlds," but I thought it was as intense a movie experience as
I had seen in a while – that is until the last half hour when
Spielberg went Artificial Intelligence and almost completely ruined
the movie with a horrible ending. It seems the only person that can
stop Spielberg is himself, whether it's drawing out endings ala Peter
Jackson or continuing a series that reached not only it's pinnacle but
what seems like it's ultimate low point - hopefully that is. If
he's going to put any effort in at all to continuing a series, I just
wished he made it the Indiana Jones series – a series that was left
with at least a little graphite left in it's pencil. As for Knightley? Well, after she completes the Pirates trilogy and stars in
Jurassic Park IV, she might get demoted to Denise Richards status. I
don't know, maybe they can save the movie by just making it NC-17, canning Sam Neill and picking up Natalie Portman. Yeah, I'd watch that.

Winter movie preview part 2: Robin Williams' new movie and other things that baffle me

Dreamgirls, Jamie Foxx, Jamie Hudson, December. 15: Bill Condon
(Kinsey and Gods and Monsters) directs an adaptation of a Tony award
winning musical that already is being pushed toward Oscar gold before
it's release next week. The movie follows the Dreamettes, formed by
Beyonce, Hudson and Noni Rose through the 1960's and 70's as they
experience the ups and downs of show business.
Outlook: Ho-hum material could be turned around by talented actors and
the writing and directing of Condon.

The Pursuit of Happiness, Will Smith, Jaden Smith, Demember 15: Will Smith portrays a salesman on the edge of defeat after being evicted from his apartment along with his young son. The Pursuit of Happiness was based on a true story and tells a story of struggle and life defining moments, which should give Smith a chance to show off his range.
Outlook: True "heart-wrenching" stories usually end up really good or pretty bad, without a lot of grey area. It also helps that Smith can act.

Night at the museum, Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Decmeber 22: Did you see the trailer? It's about museum exhibits coming to life. Robin Williams should now understand the SNL skit which has Richard
Dreyfuss on the set of Krippendorf's Tribe going "I was in JAWS
dammit." Uh, next movie.
Outlook: Bleak – think shoveling the January snow off your car in Buffalo.

Zodiac, Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., January 19: David Fincher
of Fight Club and Seven takes a crack at portraying the infamous
Zodiac killer. Gyllenhaal has fast become a well-respected and pretty
damn good actor. The film is based around the 1970's killer who
terrorized San Francisco on his way to becoming one of the worst
serial killers known. And don't forget that when Downey isn't being
fingerprinted and asked to turn for mug-shots, he's also a good actor.
Outlook: Fans of Fincher should love what he could do with such dark material.

Breaking and Entering, Jude Law and Juliette Binoche, January 19:
Anthony Minghella (English Patient and Cold Mountain) directs a
capable cast in an intertwining human drama based around the life of a
landscape architect played by Jude Law. Other than the plot being
based around Law's investigation into a series of burglaries happening
at his firm, not a whole lot is known about the film. Minghella
brought together The English Patient, which also starred Binoche, but
Cold Mountain was so bad it ruined a sex scene with Nicole Kidman,
which is like losing while throwing a no-hitter.
Outlook: Hopefully it's a lot more English Patient than Cold Mountain.

Reno 911: Ben Garrant, Thomas Lennon, February 23: It has all the making of stupid humor and when I first heard they were making a Reno 911 movie, I can't say I was that happy about it. However, once I saw the trailer while waiting for the glorious Borat to infiltrate the movie screen, I realized it could actually be very funny. The few episodes of the show I've caught were way funnier than I anticipated they would be and now am very interested in the movie.
Outlook: Screw-up cops are just funny – think Super Troopers. Hopefully I wasn't just giddy about seeing Borat when I saw the preview.

Coming Soon: Why Mel Gibson and Howard Dean have a lot in common.

Warming up with the winter movie season part 1

The Blood Diamond, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly, Dec. 8: No one could have turned around their career better than Leonardo DiCaprio in my mind. Yes, I know that he's been a large draw for a while, but he seems to constantly refocus and go after new and ballsy
roles, instead of sticking to the pretty boy images that we all had of him post-Titanic. Now he's Martin Scorsese's new DeNiro it seems and once again is headlining a promising movie with The Blood Diamond. DiCaprio plays a man caught up in the middle of conflict diamonds crisis in Edward Zwick's (The Last Samurai and Glory) new movie.
Outlook: DiCaprio's performance could make or break the movie.

Apocalypto, December 8 : Yeah, I know Mel Gibson's a lunatic; an absolute maniac at times; but the guy knows how to make a big scale movie. Braveheart is one of the most entertaining movies I've ever seen and one of the only epics that can hold up at all made in
the 1990's. While I didn't like The Passion of the Christ all that much, I have tremendous respect for the amount he put into that film, making it clear he will go all out to make a movie the way he thinks it should be made. While I was skeptical of Apocalypto at first, the
more and more I see the trailer, the more and more I'm interested.
Outlook: A very interesting topic that not many people know about
could translate into a pretty good movie.

The Good German, George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, December. 8
(limited), December 25 (wide): Steven Soderbergh is back with George
Clooney, this time with a film a little more serious than the Oceans's
movies. While it was probably fun for Soderbergh to make less serious
movies, he does his best work in the realm of darker material. And I
love that Soderbergh is using black and white as well as a design
scheme that's a loving shout-out to the classic filmmaking era (see
Good German poster). Set in post WWII Germany, Clooney plays an
American caught up in a murder investigation in the beginning of cold
war politics in Berlin. Outlook: A must see – ballgame.

Rocky Balboa, Sylvestor Stallone, December 20: I'm probably the only
movie lover on the planet who hasn't seen all of the Rocky films, so
maybe I'm not the best judge here – but the footage from the trailer
looks horrible. And not like Home Alone 3 horrible or Weekend At
Bernies 2 horrible, I mean Freddy Got Fingered horrible – Plan 9 From
Outerspace or Jaws the Revenge horrible. I'm not sure why anyone,
Stallone included, thought it was a good idea to revise a series that
was almost universally shut down as having gone on for too long as it
is. Movie miracles happen all the time, as they seem to do with
Rocky, so it's not impossible for it to be a halfway decent flick.
Outlook: The film looks to be just as big of an underdog as Rocky.

The Good Shepherd, Matt Damon, William Hurt, Angelina Jolie and Robert
DeNiro, Dec. 22: Well, when you're Robert DeNiro and you want to make
a movie, you get people like Matt Damon, William Hurt, Angelina Jolie,
Joe Pesci and Alec Baldwin. A tale of one of the most interesting,
and certainly powerful, covert agencies in the world. Not much needs
to be known other than the movie has an unbelievable cast and a good
topic for a film. Damon stars as a young, ambitious man looking to
establish the CIA. While A Bronx Tale didn't knock my socks off, it
was a pretty good movie in it's own right and I'm looking forward to
DeNiro taking another crack at directing. Outlook: I'd be surprised
if it wasn't at least relatively entertaining, if not very, very good.

Children of Men, Clive Owen, Michael Caine, Julianne Moore, December
25: With a first-rate cast that includes Clive Owen, Michael Caine and
Julianne Moore, director Alfonzo Cuaron's is very intriguing. Those
who missed Yu Tu Mama Tambien, a film that if it was in English would
have made a much bigger dent on Americano cinema, will get a chance to
see what Cuaron can do when he's not playing with wizards and magic
spells ala Harry Potter. Set in the near future, it's a tale of a
society that hasn't had an increase in population in almost three
decades – 27 years to be exact. Owen soon finds himself escorting a
pregnant woman, Moore, to safety in what promises to be a chilling
thriller. Outlook: Has tremendous upside with a very interesting
story as well as an A-list cast and director. Warning: While good
sci-fi stories can make GREAT movies, sci-fi movies also have a
tendency to implode from the inside if they aren't handled properly.

The Number 23, Jim Carrey, Viginia Madsen, February 23: At his best
director Joel Schumacher is not bad (see The Client, St. Elmo's Fire
or A Time to Kill). At his worst, well, he's pretty bad (see Batman
and Robin, Batman Forever and Phone BoothI) This one tells the story
of a man (Carrey) who seems to be living a life based upon a book. It
promises to be a dark film, very different from Carrey's other dips
into serious acting, which I'm very interested in. Many laughed when
Carrey said he wanted to do more serious stuff – not many should be
laughing now. It's been pretty clear that as long as Carrey does
stupid comedies like Fun With Dick and Jane once in a while, he's free
to do other, more thought-provoking films like Eternal Sunshine of the
Spotless Mind and The Truman Show. Outlook: Not overly impressed with
Schumacher, but with the right script and actors, a lot of directors
can shine. This one has potential to be pretty good.

The Departed leads the way: quick comments on recently released movies

So far this year's post-summer movie rush has been very good – almost shockingly good. Though I haven't seen every movie I've intended to, I've been satisfied with almost every movie I've seen so far since the end of summer.

The Prestige: Christopher Nolan is near his top form again in the shadows of another dark looking film. Christian Bale is quickly becoming a force and the movie was good before Scarlett Johansson even stepped in front of the camera; and we all know she usually doesn't detract from the viewing of a movie and certainly doesn't here either.

Flags of our Fathers: May not be able to be judged until Eastwood's
Letters from Iwo Jima is released next year, but Flags was good on its
own right. Eastwood continues to be a creative force in Hollywood in
the field of directing – how many people saw that coming 40 years ago?

The Departed: So far, the most entertaining and personal favorite of
the movies I've seen this year. While not my favorite Martin Scorsese
movie, or even on my top five, it was as intense and thrilling as any
movie I've seen in a while. And I can now forgive Leonardo DiCaprio
for the line "I'm the king of the world." Well, almost.

Marie Antoinette: The most dissapointing of the movies I've seen so
far this year, but only because of the lofty expectations I had on it.
Still a pretty good movie worth seeing, even if it did fall quite a
bit short of what I hoped for out of Sofia Coppola. While I didn't
think it worked all the way through, I still admired the way Coppola
seduces people into looking at life from a new point of view and
refuses to make a conventional film.

Borat: I've followed the character for years, there was more hype from
the public and critic's circles than I've seen from a movie in recent
years, and it still managed to live up to the hype. Funniest movie
I've seen in a long time. It's a niiiiiice.

The Last Kiss: Worth seeing just because of screenwriter Paul Haggis.
It worked pretty well insofar as showing how tough commitment can be
for some people. Having said that, it seemed to run out of steam well
before the final credits and the ending was more conventional than the
ideas displayed earlier in the movie.

Casino Royale: Wow. The Bond series had been stale for a while, blah,
blah, blah. I agree that it was time for a change and applauded the
idea of starting over with a rougher and more badass Bond from the
very beginning. I equally admired bringing a versatile actor like
Daniel Craig to play a role not known for versatility. What I wasn't
prepared for was how well they were able to pull off the new look
Bond. Eva Green, who was criticized by many who never saw her in The
Dreamers as a poor casting move, turned out perhaps the best Bond girl
this side of Honey Ryder. What was even more impressive than I hoped
was the dialogue, which has almost never made a dent on me in any Bond
movie. The patience exhibited in holding the famous "Bond, James Bond"
line for the right moment created one of the best endings of a Bond
movie I've ever seen. And the way it rebounded from the too lengthy
poker game and pulled off the perfect ending provided enough character
fuel for Bond to go for another 20 films.


Must sees before the end of the year: Conversations With Other Women,
Little Children, The Good German, The Good Shepard, Rocky Balboa (ok,
just kidding), Babel, The Fountain, Last King of Scotland, Blood
Diamond, and many more that I've forgotten to name.

Can't wait for some PTA with 'There Will Be Blood'

I became a Paul Thomas Anderson fan after two different moments: one,
while watching the extras on Magnolia where he's seen joking around
about how little it will probably make in the box office; and two,
when I read a quote explaining why he dropped out of a screenwriting
class after lifting a few pages of David Mamet's Hoffa and getting a
C- on the assignment. Very clearly, he's one of those pure filmmakers
who doesn't care at all about the marketing and the typical Hollywood
B.S. He's not in the business to do remakes or any other spectacle
films only made to make money. In other words, he's an actual
filmmaker and not a corporate puppet who happens to know the technical
basics of making a movie – I'm sure you could name a few dozens of
those. Michael Bay is lucky he madeThe Rock because outside of that
surprisingly decent action flick, well, he's battling Roland Emmerich
for worst director who still gets a large budget.
And I know many people – mainly Adam Sandler fans – didn't like
Anderson's last film, Punch Drunk love. While not as large in scope
as his other three movies, I thought it was very well done and showed
that Paul Thomas Anderson is a filmmaker with lots of range and was
very impressed overall with the movie. Now he's set to team up with
Daniel Day Lewis, an actor I have unbelievable respect for in the 2007
film There will be blood. It makes perfect sense for the two of them
to team up together. Lewis is an actor of extreme range in character
who basis his film choices upon interesting characters, not submitting
to every script that lands in his hands – like Samuel L. Jackson seems
to be doing and Paul Walker should be doing. I'm also very interested
in the topic, which is greed and power struggle in early 20th century
business.
The film could turn out to be a disaster, but I'm impressed with the
way that Anderson seems to be picking his films. He seems to throw
out everything he's done before, look for a topic that is interesting
to him and that he could make a good film based upon, and work from
there. So many directors today seem to define themselves early in the
career and stay within a small circle of what they are used to doing.
Again, Michael Bay, Roland Emmerich, Wolfgang Peterson and many others
come to mind. He seems to instead be following in the footsteps of
greats like Altman and Scorsese, who proved again and again it doesn't
matter what genre it is they can make a good movie. Altman made
Nashville, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, The Player, Shortcuts, Mash and
always managed to make a "Robert Altman film," without using any of
the same material from before. Scorsese has done the same. He's done
abstract biblical epics (The Last Temptation of Christ), period pieces
(Kundun, The age of innocence), quirky comedies (After Hours), dark,
intense films, (Taxi Driver and Raging Bull) small independent feeling
films (Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore), bio-epics (The Aviator)
documentaries (The Last Waltz), intense dramas (Bringing out the Dead)
and a variety of gangster films (Take your pick.)
Anderson seems to be doing the same thing by not working within one
genre but exploring characters in any genre. Not every film is going
to be perfect, but I would rather see an Anderson dud more than a lot
of director's finest films just because you know that Anderson is
going to reach for something different. Like writer Charlie Kaufman
or writer/director Jim Jarmusch, you know even in defeat they will go
down swinging, which I think is the attitude that has been lost in
much of this generation's filmmakers – not that Kaufman has gone down
swinging yet, but you get the point. Now, if only I could get more
people to believe that Boogie Nights isn't just a movie about porn.