A couple of things to file under, “what the future might look like.” First, what is the most significant thing the Internet has done to political communication, or communication in general? You know the answer, though it wasn’t the answer you just thought of. Consider the MediaGlyph, and how it Read more…
I mentioned Suicide Squad in my prior blog, and I did indeed see it in the theatre the other day. So what did I think? Well, most of the folks critical of the movie are right, it is badly flawed— and almost all those flaws can be attributed to the Read more…
How many of you remember the Tobe Hooper film, Lifeforce, from 1985? It’s probably the only piece of genre pop-culture from the 80’s that Stranger Things didn’t pay homage to— possibly due to the combination of full-frontal nudity and zombies. Lifeforce hasn’t gotten the same love from posterity as Tobe Hooper’s other Read more…
Just finished watching Stranger Things on Netflix, and it is fantastic. By now you’ve probably heard that it is a nostalgic throwback to 1980’s cinema, and you’ve probably heard people name-drop Steven Spielberg, Stephen King, and John Carpenter when describing it. This is all true; we have a host of Read more…
You may have heard me mention on Facebook that I’m writing a game for the fine folks at Choice of Games based on my Moreau Novels. As I said when I broke the news: If you’re unfamiliar with CoG’s work, think of it as a (much more) sophisticated digital version Read more…
I’ve finally seen the most recent Star Trek film and it has my enthusiastic approval. No it’s not the original series. But, IMO, that’s a plus. The major weakness of the first two post-reboot movies were the ham-handed attempts to tie this Star Trek to that Star Trek. This is Read more…
So there was this Ghostbusters remake/reboot that caused a lot of angst among various peoples. Since I’ve yet to see it (I’ll probably wait until it’s on Netflix.) I don’t have an opinion on it one way or another. But the existence of the film has made me ponder the idea of remakes/reboots in general; why they work (Battlestar Galactica, Casino Royale), limp past the post (Star Trek, Miami Vice), or explode in an incandescent glory of fail (The Wicker Man, The Day The Earth Stood Still.)
One obvious thing is that decent quality source material doesn’t guarantee the quality of a remake. In fact, it often seems that there is an inverse relationship; the better the original, the worse subsequent attempts seem. That may be simply a side effect of comparing the two. After all, it’s easier to improve on a crappy movie than improve on a great one, and making any movie worse is the easiest task of all. It also seems to me that the best remakes take the existing property and do something new with it (counter-example and failure: Psycho). Much is made of “gritty reboots,” so much so that it’s now a cliché, but there’s also the “campy reboot” that can also work/not work just as well (see Dragnet or Dark Shadows), what matters is that the change in tone gives a reason for the remake to exist. The gender flip in Ghostbusters obviously serves a similar meta-purpose, to change the story enough to justify the movie’s existence.
With that in mind, here are five stories I’d like to see getting remade.
(more…)
10) Rickrolls! 9) Party Unity! 8) Tolerance! 7) Higher Education! 6) Huge Protests! 5) Self-Immolation! 4) Highway Closures! 3) Urine fights! 2) Boobs! 1) Gary Johnson!
So we went to the Geauga Humane Society to get a new friend for our cat Mu. Michelle wanted a fluffy white Persian, but she made the mistake of handing me a little black kitten before filling out paperwork. By the time she came back, I told her we found Read more…
For those of you that don’t follow my Facebook page, or missed my announcement last month: I have been contracted by Choice of Games to write a “choose-your-own-adventure” style game based in my Moreau Universe. And, yes, one of the first choices you make in the game is choosing your Read more…