Jennifer Hudson adds brightness to "Sex and the City"

Ok, let's talk film. It's another movie watching weekend in the hottest movie watching summer I have seen in a long time. I am sitting here with my hour old coffee which today I had to drink with creamer. (I prefer milk, sadly I am out of cow juice today) but that will not stop me in my pursuit of blog excellence! Blogger.com's editor has rated my blog 7.3, a very good by their standards.

But, why not a 9.something? Well, I could be overreaching here. This blog has only been running a few weeks and has yet to earn stature and prestige amoung the blogging community. Well I am here my filmfans! I credulously believe that you will be enlightened by the informatory words I type each day. (at not very fast at that). I hope you are enjoying.

First off, the WANNABEES. All the wannabees will be out in full force tonight. I know! Its unfair to call them WANNABEES, but they call us FANBOYS. And this is not a testament to women. Its a poke to the New York Times and the LA Times. And its a jab to Corina Cochano of the LA times, the critic who would easily calls avid film goers to Star Wars premieres, Fanboys or geeks. They call us names, we call them names. Sounds childish, yes, then again so is film in general. So, we call them WANNABEES. The WANNABEES will be out in full force tonight. Maybe some of them will hook up with the Indiana Jones' Fanboys. It will be a match made in film male and female geek heaven.

Its still a film. A movie. And it is anicipated by a certian demographic, Females 18-55. Its an opening weekend. If the demographic were males 12-45, we would be FANBOYS, TREKKIES, GEEKS, NERDS. So the demographic here is called WANNABEES. I am just trying to be fair. I think this is terribly fair.

So moving on with Michael Patrick King. The KING of Sex and the City. The Executive Producer of Sex and the City. I think he was a writer on the show also. Along with Darren Starr, the autuer of Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place, yes these shows are all connected. Well, he is proving its good to be the KING. Mr. King has singed an exclusive deal with Dreamworks. The deal is for his next screenplay. Its supposed to be some sort of intricate romantic comedy. According to the deal, Dreamworks gets first peak at his script and dibs on that deal. He says that with SATC, the audience is accustomed to complicated storytelling.

All right, here is the thing with that. Hollywood, execs and some writers, think you are dumb. I know GASP! Why do you think they throw crap on the screen all the time? Cause a large majority of people in Hollywood think the audience is stupid. They do. They totally think that. And its comments like this that solidifies my theroy. They think we barley have two brain cells to rub together and we will pay to see anything the CEOs throw at us. And the funny thing is that we prove over and over again to them that we, as a moviegoing audience, will not settle for anything less than well made film. The numbers this last month prove that! Iron Man, great reviews and public response, very high grossing film. Speed Racer, What Happens in Vegas, not so good reviews, bad response, LOW box office numbers. How is that? How is the American people so savvy?

Execs always scratch their heads when a bad film with a big star or a big director crashes. We are a very smart culture. We can smell bad film. We know when you are trying to fool us! You can't get away with it anymore, Robert Iger Disney, CEO and this Beauty of a CEO here, Stacie Snider of Dreamworks. I don't know what Ivy Leauge school she lauded from. But she had this brilliant thing to say, ""(King) writes for audiences that are hungry for real characters and human stories," said DreamWorks Studios co-chair and CEO Stacey Snider.

Like we all aren't! Every single filmfan out there wants that and has wanted that. Ms. Snider?! Look at the top grossing films of all time, Gone With The Wind, Titanic, ET. All these films have real characters and real human stories embedded in them. How can can this woman say this with a straight face like she had her finger on the pulse of Filmfans. She doesn't. She is out of touch. For a CEO of a major studio to say this is downright scary. Scary to the nth degree.

So what do we get in the meantime? While we wait for Mr. Kings brilliant, complex romantic comedy? Garbage? Dreamworks doesn't exactly put out total garbage, well Road Trip, Surviving, Heartbreak kid - all failures. The only great things they do involve a green ogre or Spielberg. So is just trying to say that she just learned that Character and story are important. Maybe. Its scary. It is frightening to me to live in a world where a wonderful creative medium is run by non talented, out of touch people.

Other news, Brett Ratner is signed on to direct Beverly Hills Cop 4. Oh don't act surprized, I have been talking about the 4's for a while. Fours are the new threes. We saw this coming. Brett Ratner is semi talented. He is the mega force behind the Rush Hour series. I don't think he has a particular style. I look at his films like Rush Hour and X Men 3 and all I see are stock camera angles and basic two dementional storytelling. When he Red Dragon, I saw some potential talent.



He is a Spielberg clonie. Steve founded him by admiring Ratner's USC film project. He then hired him to do Rush Hour. Yet Ratner, doens't have any any real style. He's done Family Man, After the Sunset. He is not an artist. He is a by the numbers director. Yet he is a big name and if he is signed to do Beverly Hills Cop 4, so be it. If its good, we will watch it. If its bad, we will NOT go see it. I think the execs at Paramount need to know that. If the film is BAD, we will stay away. Just because its a 4 of a popular series, does not mean we will rush to the theater to watch it.

The film needs to be GOOD with interesting STORY and CHARACTERS, which all of us as audience expect. We expect a great story with great characters right off the bat, in EVERY film we watch. There is not separate "audiences", a minority that only wants good STORY. Ya know, the rest of us are happy with Road Trips and Heartbreak Kids apparently.

Extreme bottom feeding in Hollywood today. Sequel to Donnie Darko called S. Darko. The S standing for Samantha Darko, Donnie's little sister in the first film. Now the bottom feeding here is because Richard Kelly is no where near involved in this film. So you would HAVE to guess that out of the 1000 Donnie Darko seguel scripts floating around out there, this one was the least crappy. And yes, it is total bottom feeding. Because this script was not an original idea. It is born out of a popular film.



With any popular film, there is always a ton of sequel scripts that get written in hopes of getting picked up. Why? Because it is easier to have a script reader open up an Indiana Jones script than an unknown script. Its bottom feeding. Its trite. Its cashing in on someone else's idea. Its Hollywood.

RIP Harvey Corman. Funny, funny, funny. You will be missed!

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117986622.html?categoryid=13&cs=1
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3i07a95797894eac5676b972d924609489
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117986622.html?categoryid=13&cs=1
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3i07a95797894eac5676b972d924609489