Saturday, May 9, 2009

Coming Distractions May 12th, 2009


Taken
Passengers
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
Personal Effects
MI-5 - 3rd Season
S. Darko

Firstly, I just want to warn you that though Taken is rated PG-13, it certainly shouldn't be. What's up with our concept of ratings? It's OK to show 13-year-olds copious violence (as long as there isn't any blood) in movies about girls being kidnapped and sold into prostitution, but you can't have a character just casually mention that they would really love to f**k someone else (and of their own free will!) ??

Secondly, S. Darko. A sequel that never should have been made? At least they replaced all those excellent actors in Donnie Darko with Elizabeth Berkley and that guy from Gossip Girl. This new release got a couple of us at the video store pondering other possibly unnecessary sequels. Do you lovely readers agree with this list?

American Psycho II - All-American Girl: Mila Kunis stars as a young woman inspired to purge the world of evil serial killers after her babysitter has an unfortunate run-in with Patrick Bateman, until she finds she just can't stop herself... Angrier. Deadlier. Sexier.


Speed 2 - Cruise Control: Who wants Bullock without Reeves? Psssshawww...


Basic Instinct 2 - Ten years later, and no one is really lining up to see Sharon Stone's lady bits anymore. Hollywood needs to understand the small window of time in which these things are viable.

All the Saw movies.

2nd Matrix movie, though I do, of course, love my gratuitous mud dance orgies.

Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers - Despite recruiting Pamela Springsteen (Bruce's sister), the gender-bending original really couldn't be topped. Though this sequel does have an especially gag-worthy death-by-outhouse scene...

War, Inc.

Cruel Intentions 2: does it count as a sequel if you duplicate scenes from the original exactly, but slap on a few extra naked boobies for variety? I guess I shouldn't question that #2 in the title. Come, see Amy Adams attempt to live up to Sarah Michelle Gellar's legacy! Or just go watch Dangerous Liaisons. It's really a very personal decision.

I won't even start talking about unfortunate remakes, such as The Story of Bonnie and Clyde due out next year with Hilary Duff replacing Faye Dunaway and Kevin Zegers (of Its a Boy/Girl Thing!) as Clyde...

Got any to add, or have I just worn you out with all my kvetching?

5 comments:

Miss Molly Manglewood said...

American Psycho II is pretty hilariously bad - it features William Shatner! I was so intrigued by it's badness that I watched it again with the director commentary. I'm pretty sure he was stoned... he leaves the recording at one point to go across the street to get a sandwich.

Exorcist II: Heretic
The Hitcher II
The Fly II (1989)
The Hills have Eyes II (1985)
Cube 2
Pet Sematary 2

Unknown said...

Angels & Demons looks like an unnecessary sequel, but what do I know; I didn't like the first one or read the books.

There are the high-profile, major-release unnecessary sequels and then there are the embarrassing, straight-to-video, totally-new-cast unnecessary sequels. Question is, has one of the latter ever been good?

I nominate Ginger Snaps: Unleashed, which I watched last night. But it has the same star, and the original wasn't exactly a huge hit, and it's Canadian, so maybe it doesn't count.

Taken was a HUGE hit. I haven't seen it. Can anyone tell me why?

Much as I love The Dark Knight, it shouldn't have been PG-13 either. But parents took their kids to see Watchmen, so apparently a rating makes no difference to the perception that superheroes are for the young 'uns.

Miss Molly Manglewood said...

Um, Margot, this blog is my exclusive commenting turf. Please step off.

Just kidding. Did you see Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning? It's soooo very much worse than Unleashed. Which is really a shame because I like Emily Perkins and I really love the original film. I think the hideously bad key art on the original's U.S. release DVD packaging had a lot to do with its commercial failure because it did get heaps of good reviews.

Adam said...

furthermore, what about bizarro threequels that totally rule - Exorcist III (George C. Scott vs. Brad Dourif = everyone wins) and Halloween III: Season the Witch (zero Michael Meyers, instead stonehenge television mind control and little kids faces melting - literally), Death Wish 3 (20,000 leagues beyond the valley of over-the-top with A+ street-punk aesthetic-design http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agyuMM09yAE )

also, totally unrelated, but these director/band parody tshirts are kind of funny in a depressing nerd kind of way:
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj47/clgarvin/von-trier-website.jpg
http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s117/courtneygarvin/herrzo.jpg
http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s117/courtneygarvin/SCORSESE4-1.jpg

Waterfront Video said...

That's hilarious about American Psycho II - I'm definitely gonna watch that again with commentary. And I would love to wear that Von Trier shirt. Everday.