Movie Scum

Ever since Mystery Science Theater 3000 made a triumphant return , I have been devouring as many episodes as I can stand. Last night, I indulged in a hapless film about a werewolf, quite originally titled Werewolf , and saw a quasi-familiar name pop up in the opening credits: Joe Estevez . As Mike and the 'bots made a quip about Charlie's uncle being the biggest star in the film, I thought it was just an odd coincidence, not knowing there is an untapped wealth of Estevezes lurking around Hollywood. In Joe's case, I was astonished that he has been featured in close to two hundred films and none of which I have ever seen or even heard of. In fact, the only recognizable title on his resume was Apocolyse Now where he did uncredited voice-over work. I guess just like any other family, you have those with talent and achievement and others who get parts because they look like a haggard Martin Sheen at a fraction of the cost. Its sad that Joe has remained off the radar for th...

I'm sure you've all been victim to the recast monster. It takes no mercy for greed, on-screen sheninigans, or scheduling conflicts. It has no reason, no sense of remorse, or even common sense. It is willing to break your suspension of disbelief and continuity just for fun. Here are just a few random recastings that I though of which make little to no sense. Victoria - Twilight series Perhaps the most recent of these offenses is Bryce Dallas Howard taking over for Rachelle Lefevre in the third of the Twilight series. The official reason was cited as scheduling conflicts. Obviously having not seen the upcoming Eclipse , I cannot pass judgment on the new interpretation of the Victoria character, but the filmmakers should have exercised a bit more caution when dealing with riled-up 14-year-olds and Twi-moms. They seem to take this stuff seriously. Kristen - Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3 & Part 4 From what I can gather, Patricia Arquette was unable to return to the rol...

While watching the excellent documentary "His Name Was Jason," one of the commentators remarked how Jason was "the protagonist in his films." This struck me as interesting but not incorrect depending on how you look at the Friday the 13th series. The simplistic, watered-down definition of protagonist as I understood for many years was "the good guy." While this is the most commonly used definition, other means exist as illustrated by the literary definition . The term can mean anything from the first actor onstage in theatrical productions, the "hero" of the story, or even a mere participant in the story. Arguably though, the best definition is the central character, the one whom the audience conveys the most sympathy towards.

One of the better parts of the much maligned Nightmare on Elm Street 4 and just about the only redeeming quality in the absolutely horrid Nightmare 5 was the beautiful Alice Johnson, played by Lisa Wilcox. Alice was actually one of the better written characters in the Nightmare franchise and while some of the dialogue was clumsy at time, Wilcox performed better than expected in the third and fourth sequels in a series that was unfortunately going downhill fast. After Nightmare 5 came out in 1989, Wilcox seems to have been largely off the grid. According to her IMDb resume , she has appeared in a handful of small films and some guest appearances on various television series. While this certainly may be an intentional choice by the actress, it is rather disheartening to see someone go from headlining two relatively popular movies to fading into the oblivion of scraping by with acting gigs here and there. Recently, she has appeared with fellow Nightmare star Robert Englund and other...

History certainly seems to repeat itself. Films in 3D have been around for a while but seem to have peaks and valleys in their popularity. With the last burst of 3D cinema occurring close to thirty years ago (perhaps it follows the remake timeline ), more films recently have been released relying on the concept of adding that extra dimension to movies. With James Cameron's much publicized Avatar set to drop later this month, 3D films could be facing a huge resurgence depending on this film's success. But my question stems from an article quoting James Gianopulos, the CEO of Fox who was overseeing the production of Avatar: "As Jim says, we experience the world in 3D, why should we experience film any different?" Having only seen one film in theaters with 3D segments (for the record, that was the terrible Freddy's Dead ), I can't really speak for how well depth perception is really conveyed. My questions are, if films have been shot in regular 2D for de...