Earlier this week we saw the trailer for the trailer for the remake of Total Recall.
For all those days since we have all, I’m sure, been dreaming what the real trailer would be like? Would it open our minds to new possibilities for cinema? Would Colin Farrell be the Doug Quaid we only imagined from Arnold’s performance? Would we be privy to genius?
Eh. Not so much. (Sorry it’s not embedded, having some technical difficulties)
Look a lot like just another remake to me…just a little less bright and clean.
The countdown has been going on for months. HBO has been feeding the frenzy, releasing teaser after trailer after photo after interview. The books have been on the best seller list for ages. All leading up to tonight.
The last time I remember that a fantasy series so caught the public’s attention was in the lead-up to each of the Lord of the Rings movies. Why not Harry Potter or The Hunger Games, you might ask? Both of those series had broken through to all levels of the reading populace before the movies were released. While there were those out there who had memorized the LOTR books and were able to converse in elvish, most people only had a passing knowledge of the books. Before the Sorcerer’s Stone came out, JK Rowling’s story of the boy with a lightening scar on his forehead who lived under the stairs and was really a wizard was more well known. And we all know the rabid fans out there for the Hunger Games before the movie ever came out.
But what about Game of Thrones?
There has been a push to describe as something for the “Dungeons & Dragons crowd”, as if that was simultaneously an insult and a badge of elitism. The moment it became clear that the series was set in a medieval world and dealt with men in furs with swords and women in gowns and then dragons…that sets off the bells. There was a recent article in the New York Times that is pretty critical of the series. It suggests that there are too many characters with similar goals (essentially the Iron Throne) and that none of them are particularly of interest, that there are no characters for the audience to latch on to.
Some people love this kind of stuff, of course, and presumably those addicted to the George R. R. Martin books on which the series is based will immerse themselves in Season 2, just as they did in Season 1. Will anyone else? You have to have a fair amount of free time on your hands to stick with “Game of Thrones,” and a fairly low reward threshold. If decapitations and regular helpings of bare breasts and buttocks are all you require of your television, step right up.
…
What “Game of Thrones” needs if it is to expand its fan base beyond Dungeons & Dragons types is what most of the United States didn’t get this year: a hard winter. Life in this particular fantasy land consists of seasons of indeterminate length, and since the series began there have been references to an impending winter of fearsome power.
Pardon me, but I feel this is all too reductive. There are more people watching the brilliant HBO series than those who were original fans of the Martin books and I personally know of at least TWO viewers who wouldn’t even know how to play Dungeons & Dragons.
When the series premiered last year, the NYT ran a review that basically said that Game of Thrones is for boys, with sexiness thrown in to get the girls to watch:
The true perversion, though, is the sense you get that all of this illicitness has been tossed in as a little something for the ladies, out of a justifiable fear, perhaps, that no woman alive would watch otherwise. While I do not doubt that there are women in the world who read books like Mr. Martin’s, I can honestly say that I have never met a single woman who has stood up in indignation at her book club and refused to read the latest from Lorrie Moore unless everyone agreed to “The Hobbit” first. “Game of Thrones” is boy fiction patronizingly turned out to reach the population’s other half.
This is just patently untrue. The idea that fantasy and sci-fi is only for men is an outdated notion and Virginia Heffernan’s review pissed off a lot of people – men and women – out there who saw the series, both book and TV, as something more and appealing to those with and without penises. Not to mention that most of the characters in the series that have the power and foresight to get said power, are of the fairer sex. Just ask anyone who reads the books what they think of Arya or Daenerys or even Cersei (no matter how much you might hate her), and you’ll see these are not females who wait for a man to tell them what to do.
So why does this reductive tendency exist? Why are people so quick to jump on the “genre” bandwagon like it’s something negative? Is it that urge to demean something you don’t like or just don’t understand? Have we come so far too fast so that it’s inconceivable to so many that a fantasy series that is more about power struggles and complex characters than about wands and wizardry can’t be seen as universally appealing?
I don’t know. But I do know that it becomes tiresome to have the same argument over and over again. Remember…Genre is not a dirty word.
But on to tonight!
Will the season 2 premiere live up to the hype? Apart from Lost or Mad Men, I can’t think of another TV show that inspired such levels of obsession. I mean…Game of Thrones pizza from Vinnie’s Pizza in Brooklyn?
Vinnie's Pizza takes their love of Game of Thrones to a new level
New York Magazine even put together every kill from season 1 into a 60 second video.
And last year when the series premiered, we got this highly entertaining tribute to the Lannisters, those incest-loving, gold crapping, back-stabbing, debt-paying Lannisters:
Stark-inspired ready to wear by Helmut Lang; all the rage in Westeros
Based on the 2nd book in the series A Clash of Kings, this season will have to expand the world that season1 introduced. We get more characters, say goodbye to others, and learn to love some that we might have previously sworn off. Magic continues to creep in at the seams but the driving force is the hunger for power and loyalty to family and loved ones. And while the first season was able to get by with small skirmishes, there is an epic battle at the end of the season that will have to take front and center.
The battle for the Iron Throne continues tonight
I hope many millions of people watch and I hope many of those are people who have never picked up a fantasy book but are drawn in by the rich characters, complex plots, and gorgeous sets and locales. I hope that many women continue to watch and not just because you get a sex scene thrown in here and there (remember, there’s a lot more sex in the books than you ever get on the show). I hope that those who were willing to let The Wire or The Sopranos grow on them, are as patient with Game of Thrones. I hope the program lives up to the moment when the showrunners displayed their courage by going through with the beheading of Ned and you saw the beginnings of the repercussions for Seven Kingdoms. I hope Peter Dinklage’s Tyrion continues to be as cunning and sly and brilliant and clever as we know he is.
In the end I say, forget the criticisms, ignore the hype and just watch.
And never forget — Winter is coming and the North remembers.
Short. Meth-y. New Mexico-y with the twang. And chock full of chemistry. It gets the point across in a few seconds.
But what happens when you take one of the most graphic and visually interesting opening credit sequences this side of Game of Thrones?
From Justin Hook’s blog, we get this great combination of the 2 brilliant AMC dramas – the visuals of Mad Men, but the content of Breaking Bad…
The chemistry nod here is a bit more stylized and I particularly like the graphic on the “Better Call Saul”. But what I really liked about this was you get a sense of the violence that permeates the show.
Just a stream of blood into a drain can say so much.
As you might have already heard, glory be to the heavens above, we will be getting an Anchorman sequel!
Stay classy San Diego
Will Ferrell announced it last night on Conan, in his own delightful fashion…after a jazz flute solo:
“I want to announce this to everyone here in the Americas, to our friends in Spain, Turkey and the U.K. — including England — that as of 0900 mountain time, Paramount Pictures and myself, Ronald Joseph Aaron Burgundy, have come to terms on a sequel to Anchorman.”
Anchorman, while wildly all over the place, is easily one of the funniest movies in the past 10 years. It was also a pretty successful out, grossing $91 million worldwide. Luckily, the Hollywood Reporter tells us that both Steve Carell and Paul Rudd will be in the sequel as well.
I don’t think this movie can come out soon enough. But to tide us over…
I'm guessing there's a recipe for lemon tarts in this...
New York Magazine’s Vulture blog has an interview with the author Alan Kistler. He seems to have done his homework and really tried to make the recipes doable without totally losing sight of the food book origins.
I for one would love to see how to make Lannister IPA or Direwolf Ale. Not so sure how I feel about the Khaleesi’s Heart:
We got a beef heart that’s cooked up with vegetables and red wine vinegar. You put it into a food processor with lots of vegetables, and then you put it on the grill.
When asked if he’s interested in doing other pop culture based cookbooks, Kistler replied
There’s definitely Star Wars cookbooks out there, there have to be Star Trek cookbooks. But I did start thinking about Doctor Who, or superhero comics. Batman’s favorite tea is lapsang souchong, which is also mine. So immediately I thought, I could do the Justice League Cookbook — recipes for everyone from Wonder Woman to the Green Lantern, and Aqua Man’s Atlantean dishes. I think that would be hilarious.
I think it is indeed hilarious, but is there something there beyond novelty value?
I loved the original Clash of the Titans from 1981. Harry Hamlin as Perseus, Laurence Olivier as Zeus, Burgess Meredith as Ammon Perseus’s trainer…it was a cavalcade of cheesniess.
When they decided to make a remake a couple of years ago, I was highly skeptical. And rightfully so. They took a movie with Ray Harryhausen creatures and turned it into an fx laden, over complicated and overly designed action movie like everything else that is coming out these days. Whereas the original had a bit of a sense of humor, the version released in 2010 was so intent at being a sword and sandal epic for the new millennium that is lost all its spunk.
Needless to say when I started seeing posters for WRATH of the Titans, I was less than excited to see it.
Did we really need more terrible bastardization of Greek mythology? I was glad to be, somewhat, mistaken.
Kronos devouring one of his children. Can you call it cannibalism if they're gods?
The story is silly, as it always is. Zeus is imprisoned in Tartarus by Hades and Ares, his brother and son respectively, in an effort to free the Titan Kronos. Kronos was the father of much of the Greek pantheon. Upon hearing that his own sons would destroy him, Kronos actually ate his own children when they were born. The youngest of his children Zeus, was hidden by his mother, and grew up to free his brothers and sister who then helped him overthrow Kronos and the other Titans. All the Titans were then imprisoned in Tartarus in Hades.
Never let it be said that Greek mythology is either bloodless or boring.
So back to the wrath…
Zeus is imprisoned and he calls upon his son Perseus the demi-god who had defeated the Kraken in Clash of the Titans to rescue him.
Sam Worthingon from Avatar and Terminator: Salvation reprises his role as Perseus and it’s a bit odd because while everyone else is essentially British, as you do when you make a film about Greek gods, Worthington is an Aussie and speaks in his own accent. It’s just odd enough to make you shake your head every so often. Perseus teams up with another demi-god, Agenor son of Posiedon. Agenor is played by Toby Kebbell from the Guy Ritchie film RocknRolla and he provides the comic relief. They are joined by Rosamund Pike taking over the role of Andromeda from Alexa Davalos. Pike’s Andromeda is a warrior princess and does a bit more than look pretty and act as Kraken-bait. Together they journey to Tartarus to save Zeus and stop Kronos.
The gods in Wrath are all respected actors, much as in the original Clash of the Titans: Liam Neeson is Zeus, Ralph Fiennes is Hades, Danny Huston is Poseidon, Bill Nighy is absolutely as Hephaestus “The Fallen One”, and Edgar Ramirez is Ares. Ok so Ramirez isn’t on the same level as the other gods, but you get the picture.
What the sequel has that the initial remake didn’t was that great sense of humor that made the progenitor of the series so much fun — a sense of humor. Not feeling the need to follow in the footsteps of another film, this time the filmmakers were clearly able to breathe. At one point someone is introduced to Perseus and they make some comment like “Oh right right. ‘Release the Kraken’ and all that.” That is correct; the movie has the balls to mock the line that helped keep the 2010 Clash in the forefront of everyone’s mind…even if for the wrong reasons.
Kronos is one bad ass Titan. Reminded me of the Balrog.
Like many of the movies that have come out lately, the action scenes are edited as if someone put them into a blender. While the desired effect might be to make you feel as though you were in the middle of a great battle, you just get dizzy and are unable to see any of the interesting creatures in any amount of detail. That being said, the effects are much better than in the first outing. The scenes in the ever-changing labyrinth in Hades are well done and the crowing achievement was Kronos. He was fire and lava and ash; total and utter destruction. Sure that Kronos probably would have burned his children to a crisp before devouring them, but as the chained Titan, he was fascinating.
While I am OK with many of the wildly inaccurate mythological portions of the movie, the thing that got up my dander were the family issues. Yes, Greek mythology is nothing but a family of gods wreaking havoc in an effort to show each other up or exact revenge. But it was never this mopey, this sappy. Ares is mad at Zeus because Zeus favor his other son Perseus. Hades is mad at Zeus for banishing him to Tartarus to watch over their father after they defeated Kronos. Zeus and Hades have their daddy issues with Kronos and Perseus has his issues with Zeus; Zeus wants him to embrace his god-side, when all Perseus wants is to be a humble fisherman with his son and avoid any further Medusa-type situations.W It’s like one gigantic dysfunctional family event.
In the end everyone hugs and makes up, something the gods would despise. They might have battled each other but they never hugged and cried. It was a bit much. Watching Hades and Zeus bond like they were on an ABC Family drama is just silly.
Overall Wrath of the Titans was a mostly entertaining big budget action flick that you can watch, enjoy, mock, and then forget. Or not. Remember we’ll always have this…
The first trailer for Sasha Baron Cohen’s new movie didn’t do much for me.
It seemed a bit hackeny and cliches, especially for someone of SBC’s comedic talents. Also too much reliance on boob humor.
His hair rivals SBC's beard...
Second trailer on the other hand, this I would see. There seems to be a sort of Trading Places vibe to this, but instead of a hooker with a heart of gold showing him the ropes, it’s Anna Faris as a do-gooder/hippie. And Jason Mantzoukas aka Rafi aka El Cuñado from The League is in this so it can’t be all bad.
I can also watch hipsters being slapped in the face all day long.
So it’s come to this. A trailer for the trailer for the new Total Recall.
Are we so hungry for new things that we want to see a trailer for a trailer of a remake of a movie? It’s like the snake eating its own head…
But hey! We all want to see it, right? I mean can Colin Farrell be anywhere as incomprehensible as Arnold was? It was sort of easy to believe that his Doug Quaid could really be a big time operative – he was huge and that accent just doesn’t go with workaday construction worker. But Farrell? Not sure.
Also the remake is being directed by Len Wiseman, he of the multiple Underworld movies. Maybe we’ll find vampires and lycans on Mars instead of aliens?
I guess we find out more on Sunday, when we see the actual trailer for the movie and parse it for all that it is worth.
In the meantime…
And if you need a refresher on the old school Total Recall
After the MPAA gave it an R rating for language, Weinstein Co.’s movie Bully which focuses a spotlight on the problem of bullying in school and the lives of the children that have been effected, will now be released unrated. This decision was made rather than remove the offending language, which it has been argued would whitewash the problem.
Some are concerned that without a rating, some theater owners would give the movie an NC-17 rating, keeping even more young people from seeing it than an R rating would.
Due to bad language, this movie was almost rated R.
We believe theater owners everywhere will step up and do what’s right for the benefit of all of the children out there who have been bullied or may have otherwise become bullies themselves,” Bruno said Monday, adding that the company plans to make the film available to teachers, parents and students nationwide.
Katy Butler, the pioneering teenager who started the petition to have the movie’s MPAA rating changed responded to this news, telling the AP
“The MPAA said they wouldn’t drop the ‘R’ rating unless this language was removed,” she said. “But nothing can remove it from the halls and playgrounds of schools where bullied students hear it each day, except education and exposure.”
What will this really mean? Will the kids who need to see it actually see it? And when and if they do…will the movie help make a difference….?
Movies, TV, and all things Pop Culture 