“Death Race”–now with hot chicks!

Have you seen the trailer for the remake of “Death Race 2000″ (now called, simply, “Death Race”)?

I’m not sure what I think of it. On the one hand, it does have a lot of explosions and fancy driving and Ian McShane. But on the other, it stars Jason Statham, late of “Crank,” the only movie I have EVER walked out on in a theater.

I’m sure Jason Statham is a decent guy, but I absolutely cannot sit through a movie where he’s the star. I keep hearing about how great “The Transporter” is, but I’ve attempted to watch it three or four times now and I always lose interest after 15 minutes. And “Crank”…good God, don’t get me started on that. It probably has some fans out there, and God love ya if you’re one of them, but that was the worst piece of crap I’ve ever had the unbridled displeasure of spending five bucks to see.

Another thing that irritated me in the trailer for “Death Race”: the female inmates brought in to navigate for the drivers in the race. Did anybody else notice that they were all, to a person, hot chicks? What happened? Was there a mass riot by Victoria’s Secret models? Where were the 300 pound matrons who could flatten your head with one pounding of a meaty fist? Where were the skeletal crack hos? Where were the unwashed murderers who cut off their husband’s tallywhackers after he demanded sex one too many times?

Instead, every one of the female prisoners–like all female prisoners in action movies (I’m looking at YOU, “The Condemned”)–are gorgeous and stacked. The only concession to the grittiness of prison life is the glowy sheen of sweat shining on their perky boobs.

Makes me want to shank a bitch.

End Times Sign #49208

Cthulhu.

What do you think when you hear that mysterious yet weirdly spelled name. Ancient evil rising from the depths of the sea? Tentacles unfurling, cold eyes surveying mankind’s world and seeing its destruction? Abominations from deep space? Tori Spelling fighting its evil, apocalyptic cult?

Wait. What?

Yep. Apparently Tori “My-Daddy-Had-Nothing-To-Do-With-My-Career” Spelling is starring in CTHULHU (why does it seem like it should have an exclamation point?), from Regent Releasing. Check out the website HERE. Go ahead. As ever, I’ll wait for you.

So…did you watch the trailer? All I could muster up was a shake of my head and a “wooooooow” of unutterable sadness. Looks pretty craptacular to me.

And not one tentacle did I see! Not one!

Granted, I might be coming down a little hard on it. After all, S.T. Joshi–who knows Lovecraft’s work better than anybody–says it’s the best adaptation to date. Hmm. Perhaps. Too soon to tell. I just can’t get over the Tori Spelling-ness of it all.

It’s supposedly coming out in theaters in August. Which probably translates to one theater in L.A., for one week, before it hits DVD.

Blech.

(Thanks to Bloody-Disgusting.com for the horror news)

…and in the “Creeps me the hell OUT” department…

Have you seen the trailer for “Mirrors” yet? Pop over to the movie’s website and check it out. I’ll wait.

Now was that not the coolest thing you’ve seen in a while? Mirrors, man. They creep me out.

Can’t wait for this one. How can you resist a movie that has a scene like THIS in it?

Good times, good times.

“The Crappen–”…nah, it’s too easy

I’m not an M. Night Shyamalan fan.

I remember when “The Sixth Sense” came out and everyone started saying he was the second coming of Hitchcock. What a TWIST! Everybody was so damn impressed with the twist ending that they forgot to notice that the rest of the movie was…well, a little bland. In my not-so-humble opinion, it could have been much creepier if there had been more dead people for the kid to see. The whole part in the middle when he sees Mischa Barton’s ghost puking and then solves her mysterious death seemed like a pilot for a series on ABCFamily.

But it was a pretty good movie. I liked it okay enough.

Until I saw the DVD commentary and he revealed that the color red in scenes with Bruce Willis denoted his ghostiness.

What. The. Hell?

Ugh. The pretentiousness, it burns.

So then “Unbreakable” came out, and M. Night was still riding high on the goodwill from “Sixth Sense.” And it was utterly, utterly unmemorable. Seriously. Do YOU remember what the movie was about? Something about super heroes and Bruce Willis and I think Samuel Jackson did something or other in it. But critics adored it, M. Night’s fans continued to worship him, and he got the green light for “Signs.”

Ah, “Signs.” How I wanted so much to like that movie. I really did. Despite my deeply held belief that M. Night is a douche, I wanted to love a movie about crop circles and alien invasions. And the movie started out so promisingly, with creepy sounds on the baby monitor and big crop circle arrows directing the aliens to “ATTACK HERE!” and that footage of the alien at the birthday party. Good stuff. Even I’ll give him that.

But then…

But then M. Night decided that the whole “show don’t tell” adage when it comes to movie-making is a bunch of crap, because he decides to move all of the action of the movie OFF the friggin SCREEN! Okay, yes, I know the emotional center of the movie is a man trying to defend his family and recover his faith; yeah, that got shoved far enough down my throat for me to get it. But come on…at least throw us a bone and show us some of this stuff happening all around the world by flashing some news footage or something. It reminded me of a stage production of “Dracula”–all the characters talking about really cool, scary stuff that ALREADY HAPPENED to them.

I won’t even get into the whole water thing. Seriously, M. Night. Water? After dropping that anvil in your glorified cameo about having a “feeling” that they don’t like to be around water, you actually went there and made THAT the thing that defeated the aliens? At least in “Alien Nation,” it was salt water that the aliens couldn’t take.

But even then…I can watch “Signs” when it’s on TNT and see bits of it that I really like. The “last supper” scene, for example. Mel Gibson, for all his failings and flaws as a person, can act his ass off when he wants. I can see moments of the movie that it could have been.

So after “Signs,” I was obviously ripe for the picking. I saw “The Village” at the theater.

That was when I was convinced that M. Night was so full of shit he squeaked.

I loved the idea of monsters terrorizing a village. I loved the idea of being afraid to go into the woods or out of the boundaries of the village because “they” would get you. I loved the idea of the monsters randomly rampaging through the village to pick off the easy prey. All that stuff would have made a really good movie.

But,  of course, M. Night had to have his damned TWIST. Oh, no…you sillies! It’s not really monsters terrorizing the village! It’s just people dressed up like monsters! And it’s not really an 18th century village! It’s just a really elaborate historical theme park stuck in the middle of Pennsylvania! Ha-ha! Gotcha!

While watching the movie, I figured the twist might be something like that…but I thought it would be much cooler, like Brice Howard would come out of the woods and discover that the rest of the world had been destroyed in a nuclear war. Not that a bunch of over-protective hippies decided that the old ways were better and went off to churn butter in an animal preserve.

Argh. I vowed at that moment to never–and I mean NEVER–go to the theater to see another one of his movies.

So when “Lady in the Water” was released, I wasn’t suckered into it. I’d read the book, The Man Who Heard Voices, and I pretty much knew what kind of cinematic crap to expect. Again, he could have done something really cool–a mermaid-ish creature from another world? Monsters coming after it to drag it back? Sounds good to me!–but he didn’t deliver. Of course, how could he, when he had to create his own character as a writer who becomes the savior of mankind through his brilliance?

“Lady” flopped like a goldfish dumped onto a tile floor, which didn’t surprise me. In fact, it vaguely gratified me to see that people were finally getting wise to M. Night. Of course, it wasn’t his fault that the movie bombed. Audiences just weren’t mature or enlightened enough to understand his deeply philosophical film.

Uh-huh. That’s why. Not because of stilted dialogue or cutesy characters or overbearing egotism on the part of the writer/director/star-in-his-own-mind. Okay. Sure.

When the trailers for “The Happening” first started popping up, I’ll admit I was intrigued. I’m a sucker for an end of the world movie, and the vague, ominous threats in the previews looked interesting. The fact that M. Night wrote and directed it made me wary, but then again…end of the world, people! Sure, the title looked better suited for a freakazoid, psychedelic ’60s hippie-fest, but the poster, with its abandoned cars and empty road, got my attention to the point where I considered breaking my vow and going to see it when it was released.

Thank God, my better sense prevailed. I read the reviews after “The Happening” opened. Of course, die-hard M. Night fans liked it, but since I’m not one of their number, my hackles went up. I read more reviews. All of them were bad. Any director who tries to make the whispering of the wind in the trees ominous needs, obviously, to think long and hard about what kind of movie he’s making.

I can’t comment on “The Happening,” because I haven’t seen it yet. I might rent it when it comes out on DVD. Actually, I’ll Netflix it, so I don’t feel like I’m actually shelling out money to see it. I have a bad feeling I’ll have that same sense of “Oh, God…why?!?” that I felt when watching “Signs.” So much potential to be good, ruined by so much undeserved ego.

M. Night Shyamalan’s biggest failing as a director is that he got too much too soon. His first movie was such a big success that it set an impossibly high standard for every other movie that would follow. He was too praised, too rewarded at too early a stage in his career. I firmly believe in the whole “paying your dues” ethic, and he got a free pass (although one could say that he’s paying them now).

I’m not saying that he’s not a capable director. He has moments of brilliance, and he has created some truly memorable scenes. But he’s bought into his own hype. He’s paying too much attention to the fans who think he can do no wrong and not enough to the critics who know better. A little hubris goes a long way, and he’s got enough for the entire graduating class of UCLA’s film-making department.

He might be getting on the right track now, though, since he’s not going to be writing his next film, “The Last Airbender” (which sounds like a euphemism for a fart, but maybe that’s just me). He needs to step away from the word processor and concentrate on the aspect of his career in which he actually shows promise. Just direct the movies, M. Night. Put down the keyboard and nobody’ll get hurt.

And get over your damn self already.

New “Nightmare” Re-do: We are not impressed

So they’re remaking “Nightmare on Elm Street.”

First thing that pops into my mind is simply…why?

Then I remember…there’s money to be made in rehashing the ’80s. Silly me. I forgot that the “chosen ones” (i.e. the favored movie-going demographic) weren’t even born with the original “Nightmare” came out in 1984. These are audiences who think the “Saw” and “Hostel” series are the gold standard in horror movies (and I just shuddered as I wrote that).

Anyway. Remaking “Nightmare.” Good idea? Probably not. Mostly because they more than likely won’t do it right. They’ll hire hot actresses and actors to scream and flail around in blood, and some no-name to play Freddy (because I don’t think they’re going to bring Robert Englund back as Fred Krueger–their mistake) and they’ll say it’ll have a “dark tone,” which means the deaths will be excruciatingly gross and violent and try to outdo Eli Roth’s Grand Guignol wanna-bes.

And who is going to write this “re-imagining”? Wesley Strick.

What? You’ve never heard of Wesley Strick? Yeah, me neither. Apparently, though, the dude wrote “Wolf” and “Cape Fear,” along with a bunch of movies you’ve probably never seen. Personally, I intensely disliked “Cape Fear” and thought it was over-rated hooey (I mean, really…sucking Robert DeNiro’s finger is supposed to be erotic? Try unhygienic. Yuck.) and “Wolf” just bored the snot out of me. Jack Nicholson, no matter what role he’s playing, is always Jack Nicholson. It’s distracting.

But I digress. Will the “Nightmare” remake make money? Oh, yeah. It’ll  make a lot, just based on the fact that people will go see it just to bitch about it. Will it be as good or creepy as the original? My gut tells me no. Resoundingly no. Horror movies nowadays are too slick, too self-aware. Audiences know what’s coming.

I don’t envy Strick his position as screenwriter for this, because he’s got a big ol’ pair of shoes to fill. All I can say is that they’d damn well better keep the glove the same, or else they’ll have a mutiny on their hands.