Hollywood Death List, #1
My NADD had some unfortunately side effects when the second Star Wars movie came out. The problem was, I knew everything which was going to happen before I walked into the theatre. It didn’t help that the movie blew chunks, either.
The issue was that I spent the two years before the Clone Wars landed reading TheForce.Net. Every day. Didn’t miss a damned thing. While this fulfilled my NADD information empowerment desires, it made for a lackluster movie viewing experience.
This time around, relative to Star Wars, I’m ignoring the rumor sites, but I still have a deep desire to know what is going on in Hollywood, so I’ve developed a habit of reading news on three different sites:
What is interesting about this habit is what I learn via cross-referencing the three sites. Movies.go.com yield miscellaneous rumors about movies, IMDB tells me about casts and production crews, and Box Office Mojo shows me how these folks are doing… financially. The combination of all this data often tells stories that you don’t read on Ain’t It Cool News and I figured it was time to indulge my habit in writing.
Welcome to the Hollywood Death List.
For this column, I’ve borrowed the American Hospital associations guidelines for describing a patient’s condition to the media. These guidelines use one-word descriptions regarding the patient’s condition. These one word assessments:
Undetermined : Patient awaiting physician and assessment.
Good : Vital signs are stable and within normal limits. Patient is conscious and comfortable. Indicators are excellent.
Fair : Vital signs are stable and within normal limits. Patient is conscious, but may be uncomfortable. Indicators are favorable.
Serious : Vital signs may be unstable and not within normal limits. Patient is acutely ill. Indicators are questionable.
Critical : Vital signs are unstable and not within normal limits. Patient may be unconscious. Indicators are unfavorable.
What I’ll be exploring in this column is the health of those in Hollywood by the facts I find in web sites like the ones I describe above. This is entirely my opinion which happens to be the opinion of a software engineer who really hates going to LA, but finds the movie development process to be a distant cousin to the software development process, but that’s another column.
Here we go:
The first entry for the Hollywood Death List goes to a Brit who has written some of my favorite romantic comedies. Richard Curtis is rated Fair with the release of Love Actually which brings together a litany of your favorite EuroActors in, what looks like from the trailer, a combination of all of Curtis’ prior movies.
Curtis is rated highly mainly due to his writing pedigree which includes Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and the chick favorite Bridget Jones’s Diary for which a sequel is currently being filmed.
He’s taking his life in his own hands by directing Love Actually, but he’s got the sequel to Bridget Jones’s already written and in production, so a stumble in the director seat would not be life threatening.
Richard Curtis | Good Condition | Trade Value: Not traded on HSX.com
Will Ferrell is rated as Fair with the release of Elf. Who didn’t love this guy in Old School? Looking at his upcoming work, it’s hard to imagine him coming out of the other side without some type of life threatening injury. He’s got Elf, Anchorman, The Wendell Baker Story, Winter Passing, some Woody Alley project, Bewitched, a Confederacy of Dunces (daring), and a random Soccer Comedy. Ferrell looks like he’s taking advantage of a modicum of fame to th extreme
This type of sprint strikes me as unsustainable and also increase his chances of generating complete crap. Keep an eye on vital signs.
Will Ferrell | Fair to Serious Condition | Trade Value: $46.00
The little-known-tidbit-award goes to the Matrix’s Revolutions Hugo Weaving. Not only has he starred in two of this decades blockbusters, he was also the voice of Rex the Male Sheepdog in Babe and Babe: Pig in the City. Woof.
Trailer of the week goes to Day After Tomorrow. The guys behind one of my favorite popcorn flicks, Independence Day, are at it again.
Trailer honorable mention: Shrek2 trailer.
HAHAHA RANDS LIKES CHICK MOVIES
My pony right now is Gore Verbinski for his excellent one-two punch with The Ring and then Pirates of the Caribbean. Talk about versatile.
The best thing about IMDB is their most recent addition of VIDEO GAMES to their databanks. From their game listings, I've been able to reap factoids such as the fact that Orson Scott Card wrote the insults for Monkey Island I, and that the actor who played Ben in Full Throttle died, appropriately, of throat cancer.
TOMOR is underpriced -- it will be next year's big disaster movie like so many big disaster movies before it. Dennis Quaid can open a blockbuster and the previews will be overplayed between now and May... so we're looking at $60M the first weekend.
Also underpriced is DAWND, a remake of the zombie movie Dawn of the Dead, 6MILL with Jim Carrey and Whiteout (WTOUT) as adapted from the graphic novel.
The new Punisher trailer is available on apple.com/trailers/ complete with scenes of master thesbian John Travola. What Dolph movie will they remake next?
Do you think Gary Busey and Jake Busey compete for the same roles?
I like the look of The Day After Tomorrow. We haven't had a decent disaster movie for a couple of years now...
Having seen advance screening of "Love Actually", I give it thumbs up. Better than "4 Weddings..." Renewed my affection for Hugh Grant.
I am waiting for Millions , directed by Danny Boyle to be released. He directed Trainspotting, one of my favorite films from the 1990's.Choose life...
BTW, The rights to the book Porno, by Irvine Welsh, were bought. If they can get past the sex scenes and put the last 25 pages out of the book, they can do anything.
