After PBF’s rant about Julia Roberts the other day, I began to think about actors that either were once great but have since floundered out or those that I did not initially care for. Sadly, most of these actors are still making movies and collecting large paychecks while I actively avoid anything they are in, regardless of the quality (or lack thereof) of the film.

Katherine Heigl
Granted, my only exposure to her is from Bride of Chucky, Knocked Up, and the small portions of Grey’s Anatomy that I’ve been forced to watch (I shall refuse to link to that), but I don’t understand her appeal. She was mildly funny in Apatow’s Knocked Up but the rest of her resume kill any amount of goodwill that had afforded her. And yet, she has two projects in development and yet another she was just recently attached to star in. From what I’ve seen, she not particularly talented (unless the right people are feeding her lines) and reportedly is kind of a bitch to deal with. Cut her loose Hollywood. Give all of her parts from now on to Danielle Harris.

Michael Cera
Let me start by saying Arrested Development is quite possibly the best TV show ever and Cera fit in quite well with the kooky bunch of Bluths. He was also rather good in Superbad and Juno. But the problem is (and I know I’m not the first one to say this), he falls into the Vince Vaughn trap of playing the same fucking character every time, with some minor tweaks to accommodate the story. And for those somewhat memorable roles, who actually saw Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist or Youth in Revolt? And he was (allegedly) holding out on the Arrested Development movie? For what? Playing opposite Jack Black in another movie I have absolutely not interest in seeing? So, the solution is to rotate the roles for shy, awkward, young male roles between Cera and his Jewish cousin Jesse Eisenberg. That way, we get the same performance but neither of them are too burdened.

Tom Cruise
Will someone please tell Tom Cruise to stick with the more risque and off-the-wall gigs like Magnolia or Tropic Thunder? These roles work because no one really expects Tom Cruise to be a foul-mouthed motivational speaker or a foul-mouthed movie executive. Maybe he should stick to raunchy roles. Anyways, no one really wants to see (or judging by box office reports, did) a dramatic turn in fair like Lions for Lambs and Valkyrie. With the exception of the Mission: Impossible bastardization series, there really are not too many recent notable movies for Cruise. Now, I’m not one to hold off-set shenanigans against someone (except for Heigl) but his nuttiness distracts from the good-looking, average Joe roles that he seems most famous for. Maybe divorcing Nicole wasn’t the best play for you, Tom.

Robin Williams
Has Robin Williams ever been funny? He seems marketed as a comedian and may have in fact been at one time in the past but I haven’t seen anything out of him in the past fifteen years to back that up. I will give him props for Conan’s penultimate Tonight Show appearance but RV or License to Wed? These might be fine movies in their own right but IMDb ratings indicate otherwise. In fact, I think he best roles are dramatic turns such as playing the creepy guy in One Hour Photo or as a grieving father on the great defunct show Homicide. Now, I’ll admit I got a mild chuckle out of The Birdcage but I’m going to call that the exception to his past performances. Now, cast him as an Islamic terrorist on 24 and I’ll watch that. Then again, I’d watch it anyways so nevermind.

Eddie Murphy
In reverse chronological order: Imagine That, Meet Dave, Norbit, Daddy Day Care, I Spy, Doctor Dolittle, and my favorite Bevery Hills Cop III. What do all of these films have in common? They suck balls. I think with the exception of playing Donkey in the ever waning Shrek series, Eddie Murphy should not appear on celluloid ever again.

For the record, the car in the image is a Chevrolet Celebrity, the same car Neil Prescott drives in Scream. And its worth more than what I would pay for any of the above mentioned actors.

Children of my generation should either be feeling very nostalgic or very pissed. In the past few years, we have had cinematic resurrections of once popular entities such as Transformers and G.I. Joe, both to rather lukewarm (or downright angry) reception. It was reported a couple of years ago that toymaker Hasbro had partnered with Universal Studios to create up to four movies based on existing toys. Now, as a sign of the coming apocalypse, Taylor Lautner (aka one half of the Team Edward/Team Jacob battle) has signed on to portray Stretch Armstrong. Yes, you read that right. I’ll let it sink in.

Now, in fairness, Hasbro and Universal look to be giving these horrible abominations of film a fighting chance with some decent talent behind the camera. Ridley Scott is in the process of developing a film based on Monopoly (which I would assume will be six hours long and end with everyone just walking away in anger) while Peter Berg is set to go sailing on a Battleship all while Stretch’s adventures are being produced by Brian Grazer. Frankly, that’s a lot of high-powered muscle on the stupidest concept of a movie. Admittedly, during production people dismissed Pirates of the Caribbean which turned out to be a fairly successful franchise but I would argue that was the exception to the rule. While Transformers made a billion dollars or so between two movies and turned out better than I had personally expected, it was still just a series of action set-pieces and a paper-thin plot to get to robot destruction.

It was bad enough when Hollywood was focused on milking every single bit of originality out of filmmaking with previous movies, but to cross into the sacred territory of the building blocks of my childhood is unforgivable. What will come next? The Play-Doh Chronicles? NERF Wars? Lincoln Logs vs. Tinkertoys: Requiem? At least when toys were legitimately featured in films, there was a damn good reason as the movie was called Toy Story!

So, this is a simple message is to film producers in Southern California: Since you apparently refuse to create any real ideas or enlist the vast resources of people who can, please stick to bastardizing existing properties. Eventually, the diminishing returns at the box office might force you to reconsider at some point and go back to the drawing board. But, I do not want to see a Hungry Hungry Hippos or Candyland movie. That’s just too disgraceful.

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 those who do not comb through the direct-to-video bins o’ shlock. Can’t his own brother or even his nephews throw him a bit role to get him in the limelight? An actor cannot rely on cheesy movies alone since MST3K is unable to give any more promotion or residuals.

Regardless, I’ll be pulling for you Joe!

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 role of Kristen for Nightmare 4 due to pregnancy. A valid reason but that doesn’t make the shift any less jarring, especially considering they were able to bring back Joey and Kincaid with the same actors. It would be one thing if the whole bunch was recast like the Griswald kids, but having two of the three return is a bit awkward.

Jack Ryan – Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games & Sum of All Fears
Jack Ryan is a rather popular character in the paperback world having been featured in twelve novels by Tom Clancy. Yet we have only four movies over the course of twelve years played by three different actors. The constant changing of James Bond seems to actually help the series reinvent itself. While Jack Ryan could have (or possibly still) become as household as Jason Bourne, he is not an established cinematic character and thus, the series suffers from the constant delays and turnover.

George McFly – Back to the Future series
Originally portrayed by Crispin Glover, subsequent sequels in the series used a different actor for the character of Marty’s father. There are conflicting stories about why the character was recast from the favorite “creative differences” to Glover requesting an unreasonable sum of money to reprise the role. As such, the character was killed off in the sequel and barely featured in the third, minimizing what was an integral part of the series. While the stories make Glover rather buffoon-ish for not returning, the producers dealt with it in an interesting way, hiding the replacement actor behind make-up or creative camera angles.

Jamie Lloyd – Halloween 4, Part 5, & Part 6
This is the recast which pissed me off the most as the lovely Danielle Harris was kicked to the curb for a cheaper replacement, only to have the character killed off in the first ten minutes of the film. Actually, I might have been more pissed to see such a beloved character played by the same actress meet such a fate. Perhaps the producers were attempting to do us a favor to distract us from the sheer awfullness of the film. But I’m still pissed about it.

I could go on all day but I will stop here. What are some other recasts, good or bad, that caught you off guard?

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.

Now, the Friday series is not known for its depth in characterization. In fact, there is very little overlap between any of the films in the series with the characters. With some exceptions (mostly reduced to cameo roles), the bulk of the characters in the films are not only disposable but also interchangeable. The only real standout is Tommy Javis who appeared in parts 4, 5, & 6 whose character appears to be crafted by Shakespeare compared to the rest of the cookie-cutter gang. Sure, some of the final girls had their unique attributes, but ultimately no one went to see a Friday the 13th movie for the human fodder. The movies belonged to Jason.

Jason is the one constant in the series (with the exception of Part 5) and has been the one character with the most celluloid devoted to his past. As Jason is scorned from his untimely death as a child, he seeks out the similar miscreants who caused his demise and eliminate them. In this fashion, Jason is in fact the hero as he tries to cleanse the Crystal Lake area of the irresponsible, drug-smoking, fornicating teens littering the countryside, similar in fact to John Doe from Se7en. Jason is of course rather oblivious to the religious implications of his slaughtering activities, focusing merely on dicing anyone who crosses his path, perhaps with the goal of creating a better, safer lake-front property for himself and all the future little Voorhees children.

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 genre vets Kane Hodder and Danielle Harris on a Fearnet webseries Fear Clinic. Back before the remake train began for the Nightmare series, I was holding out hope that the series would be resurrected with Alice and Jacob, 15 years later battling Freddy again. Sadly, we got Freddy vs. Jason instead. If it is her desire, hopefully this series will give Lisa more exposure to get back into the swing of Hollywood and hopefully not just within the square of DTV horror films. Although, if that’s what happens, I wouldn’t mind seeing a familiar face in Wrong Turn 16 in a few years.

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 decades consistently, with 3D appearing as a fad with its many resurgences and declines, is 3D really that effective? Is it here to stay? Did it make Jaws III a better movie at the theater than what I saw at home?

I give up. Hollywood seems to be determined to weed out any original thought or story for the prospect of something that may yield a large box office take. Word is that Dimension Films is planning a remake to the remake of the 1979 original Amityville Horror. This movie not only spawned other haunted house rip offs but also several sequels in addition to its aforementioned remake.

It would seem that the window to remake a film is shrinking rapidly, much like the theater-to-home video window did as DVD gained acceptance. With the exception of new versions of previous foreign language films, an acceptable timeframe to remake a film was between 20 and 30 years if not more. The original zombie film took 22 years to be remade into color. One of my favorites, The Thing was a quasi-remake of a film 31 years previously. At that rate, the National Lampoon’s Vacation series, Lethal Weapon, and the Police Academy series are all overdue for reboot city.

But wait! Why wait 20 years for an audience to forget a story when we can just go half of a decade? It already happened with the remake/reboot (what’s the freaking difference anyway) of Hulk and possibly Superman too.

What’s next? A remake of a film that hasn’t yet been made? Ahhh … close enough.