kellinator | Movie snark

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Movie snark

Dear Hollywood,

If you can't make good comic-book movies, you shouldn't make them at all.

Love,
Kelly

This unsent letter was inspired by the morning DJs reporting that the latest casting news on the potential Superman movie is... Beyonce as Lois Lane.

Uh... NO. Not just no, but HELL NO.

Don't get me wrong, folks. I liked Beyonce just fine in the last Austin Powers movie. However, Beyonce was smart enough to pick, for her movie debut, a part that called for her to look good and have attitude and not much else. But Lois Lane? All I can hear in my head is "I'm Lois Lane and I'm a whole lotta woman!!"

Whatever happened to the good ol' days when actors were actors and singers were singers? I mean, we all know how well it turned out for Mariah Carey (can you say "straight to video", boys and girls?).

And that's not even the worst part about this supposed movie.

Playing Lex Luthor, Johnny Depp. Okay, that doesn't suck. That has potential.

Some British guy playing Superman. Okay, okay, there's a grand tradition of casting Brits to play very American roles (Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara, for example). But I have a feeling even Garth Ennis would object to this. (Ennis has said Superman's the one and only superhero he'd be interested in writing, and if you've read The Pro or Superman's appearance in Hitman, you might understand why. I think Ennis, for all his near-relentless cynicism, is interested in the idea of Superman because he's purely a good guy. But I digress.)

And worst of all... McG as the director. Yeah. That McG. Music videos and Charlie's Angels.

STOP TRYING TO MAKE SUPERMAN COOL!!!! Superman ISN'T cool!! He's a Boy Scout!! It's part of his charm!! Have you people never read a comic book?!

...Oh yeah, of course they haven't. They're movie execs.

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I also heard this morning:

Morgan Freeman as Commissioner Gordon in the new Batman.

actually, I could go with that. Aside from skin color, Morgan Freeman has all the fine qualities that the Commish has.

I love Morgan Freeman in just about anything.

I'm not a big fan of "color-blind" casting.

Imagine the uproar if someone suggested Bruce Willis play Shaft, or Anthony Hopkins play Zorro (oh, wait... lol).

well Bruce Willis playing anything but Bruce Willis and you've got a problem anyway lol

but there's a difference between "color-blind" casting and "culture-blind" casting. Shaft was a cultural character that I doubt Bruce (or any white actor) could credibly recreate. Commisioner Gordon, on the other hand, was a character that wasn't cultural-specific.

I really DON'T get that riled up about this sort of thing (so don't take this TOO seriously! lol), but I just don't like the idea that "white" is seen as some sort of Default setting that can be changed without consequence to the character.

Commissioner Gordon is white in the comics for more than 60 years and has always been portrayed as white in every media format Batman has been presented in thus far -- why change, except to be PC? Morgan Freeman is a fine, fine actor that has made many mediocre movies great just by his presence in them... but is he really the only actor in Hollywood capable of performing this part? Are all the white actors in that age group busy during this movie's shooting schedule?

As I said, I really don't take it that seriously and shrug it off quite easily -- I just find it curious and don't understand it.

he's also been portrayed as thin, moustachioed and with a full head of white hair in the comic for more than 60 years but that didn't stop anyone from casting a portly, balding, clean-shaven man to portray him.

I don't take it too seriously either, but a fine actor is a fine actor - Morgan Freeman would be great for commisioner Gordon simply because he embodies the same characteristics as Gordon. Sure there's plenty other actors who would do the job just as well. I wasn't saying he is the ONLY actor who should be considered, or the BEST actor for the part. Just that he's worthy of the part. Bruce Willis, on the other hand, isn't (heh heh).

1) I think the guy who portrayed him in the Burton / Schumacher Batman movies did a bad job, also badly cast.

2) Bruce Willis isn't even good enough to play the part of "Bruce Willis's Wax Mannequin"!

Actually, that's one I could get behind, for the same reasons

not_hothead_yet listed. Plus, I just love Morgan Freeman. He's even got the voice for it.

Beyonce is old news, and was never a real possiblity, so says Ain't it Cool News (http://www.aintitcoolnews.com).

But, yeah, the rest of it is just... *rolls eyes in Hollywood's general direction*

http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=16903

Thanks for the heads-up. I feel a little better... still not holding my breath, though...

Well, as long as they make sure to toss in some polar bears and giant spiders, all the rest of that stuff won't really matter. ;)

Awwww HELL yeah... ;)

"Anyone who knows me would know that I would never read a comic book."
-- Tim Burton (attrib)

"Well, that explains Batman and Batman Returns."
-- Kevin Smith, An Evening with Kevin Smith(DVD)

Reading that makes me want to burn Hollywood to the ground...all of it!

Get in line!!

Well, it is a shorter trip for me. I can make the drive in two hours.
Maybe three hours depending on how many cans of gas I have in the trunk and back seat. All that weight might slow me down...

I think that Beyonce thing is crap. I also don't really believe it because IMDB printed it in their "celebrity news" and most of that is tabloid reprints.

That being said, The Catwoman movie is going to piss me right off. The costume looks like crap, she has superpowers (?!?) and Halle Berry. Enough said.

Spiderman was done so well. Of course they had to go and fuck up all the rest. We hates them.

All of this makes my head hurt, but what about Hugh Jackman as superman?

I think they should go with all unknowns and only promise some cameos by the big dorky superstars.

So. Glad. That Neil has been picky about doing a Sandman/Endless movie. I'm still angry about freaking Keanu Reeves as John Constantine. *cries*

I don't know why WB is working so hard to drive DC into the ground.

I'm a big fan of the "Birds of Prey" comic... and I was very pissed off that the WB show had NOTHING to do with the book... not one character... not one plot point.... and it sucked and it got cancelled.

They have kept the Batman animated series from being in the realm of prime time, where it should have been and they fired their best writer for the show.

Aside from that BULL that you're talking about with Superman, they also want to do a Cat Woman movie with Halle B. (however you spell her damn name) and they said it won't have anything to do with the Batmna franchise

WTF?

AUGH!
AUGH!
AUGH!
AUGH!
AUGH!

ACtually, in teh good old days, Actors could sing, dance, and often fence or else had some other skill that allowed them to play a multitude of rolls on film and stage. These days, you're lucky if your movie actor has done any stage or television work.

Frankly, I applaud any actor who tries his hand at another creative outlet. I think Americans are stupid, in general, for judging someone's creative talent by the first one they become known for.

John Tesh? AMAZING composer and piano player. He'll NEVER sell a million copies of any of his CD's here because of the fact that most people won't see him as anyone but "that guy from Entertainment Tonight".
David Hasselhoff? Plenty of singers today are WORSE than him and have long standing careers. Why's he only famous in Germany and Japan and not here then? Michael Knight. Even during his Baywatch days, people kept making talking-car jokes.

On the other hand, did you ever see The Wiz? AMAZING production, that movie. And not a single singer in that movie hwo had a previously existing career as an singer got anywhere with an acting career, even though they tried. I think Cher and Barbra Streisand are much rarer precedents than they should be, and I think they both deserve every theatrical and musical award they've ever gotten, because they're both excellent at both.

I'm somewhat excited about Beyonce as Lois Lane. I want to see if she's got the chops to be a real actress or not. I'm hoping she kicks ass at both.

-elf-

Did you know that for a while the Hollywood guys were on such a musical kick that they had pretty much every body sing something in some movie or other?? I think it was in one of the That's Entertainment shows they had clips of Jimmy Stewart and Clark Gable singing in musicals. Not a good idea. Specially Clark.

But yeah. . .lots of the good old singers were also good actors - Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Bing Crosby, Howard Keel. . . . .the list goes on.

Yeah, I think it's kinda silly to say that because someone's a movie actor they ought not sing and if someone's a singer they ought not try to act. Heck, stage actors have to be able to do both lots of times, why not movie actors??

I thorougly agree with you in other words. :D

I know that sometime near when West Side Story came out and kicked ass at the Oscars that everyone and their grandmother was producing musicals. I've seen a bunch of them (and my parents owned a few) but the only ones that stick in my head are Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, a horribly chauvenistic story about mountain men stuck in a small house run by seven sisters until the snow thawed enough that the road back to their town/village would be clear again. The only reason why I even watched it is because the actor who played the lead Jet in WSS (which I love) was in 7B47B. He's not as good in that one, but that's probably because his part was a lot smaller.

*shrug*

I've managed, by sheer luck, to totally miss out on the two lastest musicals (Moulan Rouge and Chicago), but I did catch the musical episode of Xena and instantly fell in love with it. Man, that was a good episode.

I think anyone in the entertainment business should be multiskilled (not just talented), because they bring so much more depth to their craft than if they did JUST that one thing.

-elf-

Oh geez. I've also found out they're making a movie out of Alan Moore's Watchmen. I weep for you and for myself. Beyonce. Beyond belief.

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