Movie Scum

As N ick Offerman ’s character says in 22 Jump Street , no one gave a shit about the “Jump Street reboot” but it did well enough to be brought back again. Only everyone wants the exact same thing. Fortunately, this movie is smarter than to retread standard sequel ground. After a illegal goods bust gone bad, Jenko ( Channing Tatum ) and Schmidt ( Jonah Hill ) are reassigned back to the Jump Street project, still under the direction of the angry black captain Dickson played by Ice Cube, to go undercover to college and investigate a new synthetic drug. Everyone emphasizes that Schmidt and Jenko are to do the exact same thing to crack the case. Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller know well enough that standard sequel shenanigans won’t cut it after the meta-infused original that skewered the idea of Hollywood recycling and unoriginal ideas. As such, Lord and Miller turn their attention to the notion of second outings, and their built-in expectations of more of the first film...

Unbreakable   was a modest success for director M. Night Shyamalan after his genuinely good (remember when that was true) debut and now, Night longs to bring it to TV. Speaking with IGN , Shyamalan expresses interest in continuing the saga of undercover superheroes (note: I haven’t seen this movie in forever) saying. “as a way continue the story, yes. That would [interest me].” We here at Movie Scum are strongly in favor of the shift to great, truncated TV dramas but are hesitant that M. Night (regardless of whatever acclaim his recent show Wayward Pines is getting) should be allowed anywhere near the same medium as The Good Wife , Game of Thrones , or Breaking Bad . And let us not forget that he directed The Happening . And The Last Airbender . And After Earth . And ...

San Andreas : Opening May 29 The Good : Disaster movies are fun, especially when they take place (like they seem to do the majority of the time) on the West Coast full of granola-crunching hippies singing Kumbaya (note: I’ve never been further west than Ohio). Disaster movies these days are also good for mediocre special effects showing the complete destruction of iconic areas and landmarks and San Andreas looks no different. But if anyone can take on the mother of all earthquakes, it’s The Rock with sidekick Carla Gugino. The Bad : Let’s be honest though. The disaster movie genre of the 70s is long gone and it took with it any sense of characterization or possible realism. San Andreas is a Hollywood producer’s wet dream with big blockbustin’ stars, action, effects ... the whole nine yards. And boy, does it show it in every single trailer or TV spot I’ve seen for this with the crumbling buildings, massive chasms in the ground and a 100’ tidal wave that The Rock(!) powers a speed...

Aside from a voice-over role in Gnomeo and Juliet and an assuredly special episode of Walker, Texas Ranger , Hulk Hogan has mostly kept his hijinks in the fake ring of professional wrestling. Will that be changing soon? Not since Hogan and Tiny ‘Zeus’ Lister faced off with the smarmy assistant from Ghostbusters 2 in No Holds Barred have I been as excited about The Hulk appearing against a bunch of wrinkle-faced mutants (Gremlins 2 not withstanding). The Hulk confirms talks with Sylvester Stallone about appearing in the presumably forthcoming Expendables 4 as the villainous villain who no doubt will kill and maim and bring our rag-tag team of Expendables (and maybe -belles) together. Considering The Rock is likely a good twenty years away from taking this role, Hogan seems like a good fit. I just hope they can find a suitable stunt man.

In a grim look a at teenager’s life, White Rabbit shows that some people are born to be hunters and some are molded that way. Tim McCann ’s film is at times not predicable and at others you can completely see everything unfold. Beginning with Harlon ( Nick Krause ) as a boy whose father eggs him into killing a trapped white rabbit and jumping forward through the years to show the systematic abuse he suffers from classmates, teachers, and even his own drug-addled and drunk father, it is clear that Harlon is not emotionally stable. Couple this with his obsession with a comic book that he speaks to, Harlon has little in his life of note with the exception of Steve, a younger boy also forced to suffer at the hands of society. Things begin to get better when Harlon meets Julie ( Britt Robertson ), a new transplant into his high school who has issues of her own but the two forge a bond and almost a relationship through alcohol, drugs, and shooting guns in the small town. Soon though,...

If you weren’t aware, there is a new Fantastic Four film coming out this summer. By all accounts (and certainly by previous output), it will suck. But it will not be because of race. Michael B. Jordan plays the Human Torch (aka The Flamer) in the newest adaptation of Marvel’s iconic comic series that so far has registered a big fat zero on the interest scale of Puck’s movie watching. This one was really no different, not for race or changing of the villain to a blogger or anything of that nature, but because I don’t really care. Some people really do care though. In case you have never seen Chronicle, Jordan is black. The Human Torch in his comic form is white. This has apparently caused much consternation for people. On one hand no doubt, you have comic book purists who would would rather flamboyantly set themselves on fire than have any deviation from their precious source material. They are idiots and lonely and have nothing to hang to other than seeing big screen adven...

One’s a low-cost remake of an 80s classic while the other’s a big-budget original tale. Who will win? Tomorrowland Having only skimmed advance reviews, I still have little idea what Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland is about save for George Clooney being a curmudgeon and a magical pin that transports Britt Robertson to the titular place. Of that skimming though, I took away that Bird may have been better off taking over the Star Wars Franchise. Verdict: Live Another Day Poltergeist Some might say this is an unnecessary remake (and they’re probably right), but the fact is that kids born prior to the 90s aren’t scared by static on TV anymore than they know what a stinkin’ CRT TV looks like. Some of the scenes shown thus far look good but the whole affair seems to hem quite closely to the original (and still very effective original). Verdict: Just another reel on the cinematic Indian burial ground of needless remakes.

The only film director more past his prime than Kevin Smith, George Romero , will have his groaning, shuffling corpse of relevance displayed on weekly TV. Romero, fresh off the disappointments of his last several zombie movies, apparently turned to Marvel to create ‘ Empire of the Dead ,’ a story which features humans, zombies, and vampires for some reason all vying for control or social issues or some nonsense. And according to Variety , it will be joining the growing party of the undead on weekly broadcast. No word yet on how much it will suck.

In spite of the rumor* that all the Transformers films thus far have been impromptu sketches from the mind of Michael Bay, there actually were credited writers on each and every one. Now their are more writers who get the renowned prestige of listing Transformers on their resume. Variety reports that the threatened Transformers spin-offs and sequels have found writers ranging from The Walking Dead ’s Robert Kirkman to at least four other action writers not currently attached to scribe a Marvel film. Perhaps it is best that Paramount is going this thoroughly asinine way of expanding the Transformers universe to finally fulfill either the prophecy of End of Times or a public saturation of robot-based racial and testicle jokes. One of the two has to be the result. *I made up this rumor. But it tracks.

One for the kids ... one for the slightly more grown kids. Pitch Perfect 2 When 2012’s Pitch Perfect opened, it was a modest hit but with tremendous staying power thanks in no part to that damn Cups song. But now Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson are back in a ‘Bring It On’ style dance off after being booted from their competition. Will they succeed? Will Rebel Wilson steal the show again? Will there be another damn song that somehow is still popular a year after the movie premieres? Verdict: Please no more Cups! Mad Max: Fury Road We’ve already covered this one before but guns! Explosions! Tom Hardy! George Miller returning to his roots after some questionable directorial affairs like Babe and Happy Feet! Verdict: It’s Tom Hardy! Of course it’ll be badass.

According to Comingsoon.net , the Fairuza Balk & Neve Campbell scorcher The Craft is next on the reboot chopping block. Add in a remake of She’s All That , I Know What You Did Last Summer , and a TV revival of the series Scream , there seems to be little else to remake from just fifteen years ago. And yet, still no word on a remake for Urban Legend . I wonder about the world sometimes.

In his interview with Indiewire , 28 Days Later writer Alex Garland may have come up with another sequel following the not-quite-zombie exodus from England to the rest of Europe. “In that conversation, an idea for ‘28 Months’ arrived. I had a sort of weird idea that popped into my head. Partly because of a trip I’d taken. I had this thought, and I suggested it to Andrew [Macdonald] and Danny, but I also said I don’t want to work on it. I don’t really want to play a role, and Andrew said, ‘Leave it to me.’ So he’s gone off and is working on it.” Considering the first film was a powerhouse of man versus nature-ish as well as emphasizing the brutality of human nature, the sequel, 28 Weeks Later which Garland was not directly involved in was a laugh-fest of poor decisions and questionable plot points. Here’s to hoping the next one gets it right in the quasi-zombie and/or infected saga.

Not willing to let a 22-year-old sleeping dog lie, Warner Brothers is kicking up the old pooch for another installment of 1993’s The Fugitive . No word yet on any returning players including the incredible old duo of Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones according to Deadline . Considering the original Fugitive started as a TV series back in the 60s, was turned into a film of the same title in ‘93, was followed by the forgettable U.S. Marshalls sequel in 1998, and then repurposed again into a TV show in the early 2000s, I suspect we’ll see another half-dozen sequels and TV adaptations before we all succumb to death by the one-armed man.

Mad Max: Fury Road : Opening May 15 The Good : Tom Hardy. Charlize Theron. Original director George Miller. Lots of car chases and explosions. The trailers look absolutely insane filled with completely over-the-top violence and grungy people. The Bad : This is a reported straight sequel to the series started in 1979 and typically, franchises with long gaps in between films tend to not be too well regarded. Given that Mad Mel Gibson is way too old and way too crazy to reprise his role, it may or may not be a good thing that Hardy is taking over. But then again, Ol’ Mel spouting anti-semantic rants while chasing makeshift dune buggies could be an interesting watch. The Prognostication : It’ll be crazy and action-packed. But other than the completely insane trailers and TV spots that have been released, would there really be much of an interest for a thirty-year-old series? We’ll see but I don’t expect it to trump Avengers in it’s third weekend.

Back before the rise of hundreds of cable channels catering to every niche, no matter how small or stupid, and instant video options that put dozens (DOZENS!) of top movies only a click away, it seemed that we all were, more or less, on the same page for our entertainment input. Between the top TV shows which averaged more viewers than a few networks combined get now to the big box office films that were showed edited and punctuated with commercials, the world was a much simpler place. This weekend, as I read an article from The AV Club which kindly name dropped #pbf’s favorite film, Weekend at Bernie’s , along with its wretched sequel, I began to wonder how pervasive were films twenty years ago compared to now. It feels like everyone over the age of 25 has seen Weekend at Bernie’s or Die Hard simply because they were played ad nauseum on HBO or NBC. But it doesn’t seem as easy for a film to have that penetration anymore with so many different entertainment venues. I even beg...

Iron Man 2 (2010) Even with the addition of Sam Rockwell and the introduction of Black Widow, Iron Man 2 feels less like a complete film and more of just a teaser that just happens to star Robert Downey, Jr. Thor: The Dark World (2013) I swear I saw this film and for the life of me cannot remember anything plot-wise about it. I do know Idris Elba gets more to do and Rene Russo gets ... well less. Another filler movie in the MCU. Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) Granted, without the First Avenger, Captain America’s arc from a bullied kid from Brooklyn to the figurehead of the most powerful country of the world and his sacrifice means nothing. But this was still an odd movie, both in scope, in cannon with the rest of the films, and in the wonky plot structure. The Incredible Hulk (2008) Even though Edward Norton was recast for The Avengers, his Bruce Banner carried a low-lying intensity with a human touch that comes in handy when the Green Giant with purple sho...

Many have proclaimed this period to be the “golden age of television,” and with high-caliber, expertly done shows like The Good Wife , Game of Thrones , and Big Bang Theory , they may be right. But what does this upcoming season’s crop of new series show? Rather than recycling ideas for movies, they are now being recycled for TV. Case in point, by my count (and granted I might have missed a few), there are no fewer than four (4!) old movie properties re-purposed for weekly consumption by the masses. Let’s take a look at CBS’s upcoming show based on when Chris Tucker had a viable career. Rush Hour - “A stoic, by-the-book Hong Kong police officer is assigned to a case in Los Angeles where he’s forced to work with a cocky African-American LAPD officer who has no interest in a partner.” Stars Justin Hires, Jon Foo,Aimee Garcia and Wendie Malick. Sign me up for more fish-out-of-water shenanigans with a clueless foreign detective and a loud-mouth know-it-all. I give it a 13 episod...

If my contention is correct in that the original Horrible Bosses will stand the comedic test of time much like Office Space or the original Vacation, Horrible Bosses 2 will fall to the wayside as a film that tries too hard to recreate the original with a lot more stuff that falls flat. Our heroic trio of Nick, Kurt, and Dale are back together after the shenanigans of the last film but have set out to become their own bosses with an invention that is so convoluted that it must be a best-seller in airline malls and TV infomercials. Their ‘Shower Buddy’ quickly catches the attention of Bert and Rex Hansen, proprietors of a mega mail-order catalog who set them up for a large order with the backing of a generous bank to fund their enterprise. Unsurprisingly, Bert (the wonderfully sociopathic Christoph Waltz) pulls the order at the last minute, leaving our trio pissed off and scrambling to save their fledgling business. Yes, Bert and Rex are the titular horrible bosses this time arou...