Nerd Up

Director Robert Rodriguez who is prodcing this summer’s highly anticipated Predators, has revealed that he's acquired the rights for Ralph Bakshi and the late Frank Frazetta’s 1983 animated feature Fire and Ice. Rodriguez plans on rebooting the film, which is being set up at his Troublemaker Studios.

The original animated film, created the process of using rotoscoping, which means the film was shot in live action and then traced onto animation cells. The original screenplay was written by Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas. And here is a description of the film:

It began as a once-in-a-lifetime collaboration between two of the greatest icons of the fantasy genre: Controversial animator Ralph Bakshi (director of FRITZ THE CAT, WIZARDS and the original THE LORD OF THE RINGS) and legendary illustrator Frank Frazetta (creator of the iconic CONAN THE BARBARIAN, VAMPIRELLA and Edgar Rice Burroughs book covers). It became – and remains – one of the most startling animation epics of all time. Now experience a world unlike any ever seen, where savage warriors, horrific monsters and luscious maidens battle for the soul of a civilization in a time of good and evil, pleasure and pain, and FIRE AND ICE.

I remember watching this a long time ago, but it’s one of those films that I unfortunately forgot about over the years. Now that I’m reminded that it exists, I’m definitely looking forward to seeing it again. The original trailer below really brought back some old lost memories of watching this movie. Check it out, and let us know what you think about Rodriguez remaking the film!

Fuck Plan B, I’m getting over with Plan A!

First off, I hate remakes, I think it’s lazy film making and is basically Hollywood studios cashing in on its own intellectual property. Sure it’s passed off as a homage to the classics of yesteryear, sure it’s been updated to be more accessible for today’s audiences, but enough is enough, certain movies should not be remade, if a movie is already considered “Classic”, what needs to be changed? In a nutshell, the movie was what you expected, it sucks. Good eye candy, little story, and some ok performances from the movies leads. I honestly think keanu was perfectly cast as a (bumba) Klatu, I know I just broke a nerd rule, but hear me out.

I’ve read the complaints from various sources that the plot seems to get lost in the special effects, I’m guessing movie audiences need to be spoon fed plot these days, but that is beside the point. This movie fails for one reason, the casting of Jaden Smith (aka Will Smith’s kid), as the rambunctious annoying foil to the grown up characters. I’ll just put it out there, I hate this kid. His performance should go down in cinema infamy with Darth Vader yelling “no” and those goddamn annoying robots from the Black Hole.

He does serve a purpose and is an integral role to the advancement of the plot. The argument could be made that Jaden’s character is the movies true villain. It’s not humanity destroying the environment, or Klatu’s robot homie (GORT), or even the “evil” US Defense Secretary. No, all these forces are basically doing what nature intended, Jaden’s character is the true personification of evil. From initially wanting to destroy the alien, to then selfishly wanting the alien to resurrect his relatives,  those come from fear. The truest act of villainy is dropping dime on Keanu after he saved your punk ass. “A hug from you could be a federal squeeze”. nobody likes a snitch.

“No he’s going home” …. that’s right, -$15

A couple of days ago G4 posted a story about a slew of 80′s movies being optioned for remakes. Remakes in my mind have never been cool, let me run down a short list for you; “The Honey Mooners”, “The Flinstones 2″,”Psycho”, were any of these movies good? I caught the Honeymooners Remake on AMC, I wanted to shoot my TV.  It’s almost like directors, much like musicans are finding it a little too comfortable covering other works of art, which in my mind when done right, yeah, it can be hot (Tom Jones “I Who Have Nothing”), but on the flip side you have “Rap is Outta Control 2002″. I’m ranting, but back to the mater at hand,  how can they remake this movie? The scene above features (then former) WWF supreme badasss Rowdy Roddy beating the snot out of Keith David (aka the Arbeter from Halo).  Who can fill those shoes, do we really need to see Jason Stathom forcing The Rock to put on RayBans. Enough with the remakes, I’m all out of bubble gum.