movie news

OMG they killed Bambi, again!

Just in case anyone out there actually likes going to see animal movies and plans on going to see ‘Marley & Me’ then consider yourself warned about spoilers here! OK so you’ll have to forgive me for playing around with the title a little here… it was actually Bambi’s mother who was killed by the hunter. Anyway, it is pretty much the same deal with this Marley movie, when all else fails: kill an animal. And lets not forget, this is supposed to be a comedy!

This has to be one of the cheapest methods that screenwriters use to provoke an emotion inside their audience… it is quite simple really and of course it has all be done before: you build up a character, usually a lovable little furry animal, you make the audience laugh along with it through the movie and then what? You kill it. Then just sit back and watch the tears flow out and the money roll in. So you see… my only real problem with this is how cheap and nasty it is compared to other movie that produce legitimate emotions.

China: is it really worth it?

Well, in a word, no. But I’m doing a blog here so one-word answers don’t really work out that well. So anyway, it seems that China is more trouble than it is worth when it comes down to movie releases. Warner Brothers has chosen not to even bother trying to get ‘Dark Knight’ past the Chinese censors because obviously they don’t think it will pass anyway. But I have a feeling that this decision wasn’t made in haste… no legitimate company wants to pass up an extra 1.3 billion potential customers, do they?!?

There were not a whole lot of reasons given by Warner Brothers for their decision, or any for that matter, but there has been speculation that the choice has something to do with the use of singers/actors from Hong Kong and even shooting some scenes for the movie there. So it is worth mentioning here: China doesn’t like Hong Kong. So, and I’m just thinking to myself here really, maybe WB thought that they’d be asked to cut some important scenes out and they just said screw it… no movie for YOU!

This is just about killing Hitler

When he isn’t busy jumping on Oprah’s couch, giving medical advice to parents, or worshipping spacemen, he also enjoys killing Hitler. Yes that is a quote from Tom Cruise… in one of his recent interviews in which he was talking about his role in the upcoming movie Valkyrie where Cruise plays Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, a man who lead a plot to kill Adolf Hitler during World War II. He made the initial statement after warning that this is not a Holocaust movie, “this is just about killing Hitler”. He also mentions that being able to entertain the audience is just a bonus… and here I was thinking that was actually his job.

You may be wondering, like I was before reading a little further in to it, how the hell is Tom Cruise finding work these days? His movies are expensive to make and, more often than not, they lose money. But here is the reason: he has bought his way in to the commanding position at movie studio United Artists who is producing Valkyrie. So think about it, are you going to tell your boss that “Nobody likes you Tom… I hope that spaceship you’re always talking about really does come and take you away”?