A Hit of B.O. (and a little not-so-subtle film suggestion)

Ok, so I said before that I don't like remakes, and unfortunately, that seems to be the route that Hollywood is taking with much of the offerings that have come out recently and are continuing to come out for the foreseeable future. People have talked about this subject over and over again, particularly saying that originality is dead and that there are apparently no more new ideas. Of course, the film industry is a business and it seems that studios are sacrificing art and great storytelling for dollars (i.e. The Twilight Films...I've seen two and that is more than enough for me) and it's no secret that they've been doing that for a very long time. But in addition to the remakes and the reimaginings and the reinterpretations and whatever other word you want to slap on after "re", there are also tons of sequels coming out as well.


Just this past weekend, seven of the top twenty films at the Box Office (B.O...GET IT?!?) were sequels (yes, I am counting Vampires Suck as a sequel because it continues to showcase the same amount of garbage that all the other spoof movies from these same writers have thrown up[pun intended] at the box office). Obviously, an original idea is harder for a studio to put money behind because it has not proven itself to be a contender at the box office. Sequels build off of tried-and-true formulas, and there certainly are some really good ones, including this summer's Toy Story 3. However, in most cases, the sequel tends to fall far from where many originals shined. At least I think so in my oh-so-important opinion. But this stuff is what most moviegoers have to work with. So, where's the originality?

Well, there has been some this summer, and the golden example is Inception. This original idea from the Nolan brothers (I hope they start to become referred to this like the awesome Coen Brothers, but not like the Wachowski brothers, who I think are a little overrated) has shown that audiences are willing to pay the big bucks for a unique movie-going experience. And so should you!


I said good day, sir!
-E

Your First Hit of E(ntertainment)!

Don't you always remember the first time you had some E(ntertainment news)? I sure do. It was early on in my internet career when the web wasn't quite what it is now and when people actually referred to it as the web. It was probably sometime around my tenth birthday or so, and I'll explain why I remember it being around there in just a few paragraphs. I discovered a site called upcomingmovies.com (which has since disappeared after Yahoo bought it up in later years). It was run by a man named Greg and the website updated daily on news about, yes, you guessed it, movies coming to theaters in the near future. The site was amazing and at the time (at least to my knowledge) was one of the only places to go to find out immediate news about the entertainment industry, namely film and television news. I could go on every day and find updates on anything from the alleged Spiderman film being planned or dare I say it, very early news and rumors of what would one day be Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Ok, so it previewed movies both good and unfortunately for the latter of these two films, the bad).

In any event, the site created an addiction for me, an addiction to E(ntertainment news....not sure how long I'll keep putting that in parenthetical...maybe it'll be there forever...who knows?! ) that would only become worse (even worse than my StarBucks addiction of late). I had the world of film and television at my fingertips and I could learn about the ins and outs, the deals, the mergers, and the dealbreakers, and pretty much anything else I wanted to know about, even if the movie was coming out in ten years (the site had an extensive catalog of information on films only rumored for future release...hence Crystal Skull.)

So since then, I've been reading and reading from some great sites about the latest entertainment news, and there are so many that I love, but none more so than Zap2it, ComingSoon, MovieHole, and EW (shoutout to Michael Ausiello's ridiculous ability to scoop out the latest information quicker than anyone else I've read.) But I wanted to do something different than those sites who do a great job with their reporting. I wanted to take the news, bring it to you and tell you what I think because obviously, my opinion is so very important (but so is yours and I really want to hear from you audience, you wonderful, nonexistent audience, you!). This blog will be a conversation about E.

So, here's just a few things I would like to point out when it comes to some of my bias that will become utterly apparent in the blog in the future.

1. I am not a fan of Michael Bay films. There are many reasons, but seeing as this is the internet, I will leave it there and any apparent disliking of his future films will be understood and we can move on quickly. If you really want to know, refer to an old episode of my college entertainment news show called "Backstage Pass". I go on a rant about him and Transformers for a few embarrassing minutes.
2. I hate spoof movies. Don't get me wrong, but I really enjoyed Airplane! and shamelessly, Scary Movie 3 (both by the same director, mind you), but other than that, I think the others are garbage and those "writers", who shall remain nameless right now, have in recent years taken the film industry to its lowest levels with their lame, half-hearted attempts at humor, and I use the term humor very loosely.
3. I will see any movie even just once (yes, that does include films from the first two points, but that doesn't mean I have to like them).
4. I love independent features, even if I only see a handful of them a year. They continually remind me of the power of filmmaking and the lack of respect the public gives them for not going to see them! However, I will say that to go to an independent theater is like trying to find Megan Fox's acting skills. They are usually just in the city and that's always a hike.
5. I am tired of remakes, "reimaginings", re-whatevers! Let's get original people! This means you, TV, Movies, and yes, music (how many times are these "artists going to cover somebody else's music? Most of the time it's for no other apparent reason than money. If that's the case, you're not artists!)
6. I apparently like lists.

Ok, so there you have it, the first post in what is destined to be my sad attempt at running my own entertainment blog. Postings will obviously never be this long, and thanks so much if you actually made it all the way down here. It gets kind of lonely down here, so I appreciate the company!

I said Good Day, sir!
-E