There's no there there.

Is it just me or is Hollywood misfiring on all cylanders? I cannot remember such a barren year in the history of movie making. I have never had such a short list of favorite movies in any year I can remember. In the year 2010, I can only give qualified endorsements to the following movies:

1. Splice
2. Shutter Island
3. How to Train Your Dragon
4. Iron Man 2
5. The Wolfman

That list gets weaker as we go down the list. I have not seen Unstoppable yet, and I have high hopes for that one. Perhaps Unstoppable will become the 6th movie on my list for 2010.

Folks, it is December. That is the 12th month of the year. We have roughly 24 days left to go. Hollywood doesn't have much time to convince me of anything. There is a very high probability that I am going to finish 2010 with just 5 or 6 movies on my qualified endorsement list. That is less than 1 qualified endorsement deal every two (2) months.

As Vince Lombardi would say "What the hell's going on out there?!?!?!"

I'll tell you what's going on... Left to their own devices, this present generation of artists of Hollywood would make endless freak shows about their drug addiction, alcoholism, homosexuality, and mental health problems. They would characterize these freak shows as stories about characters and emotion.

Snared in the worst recession since the Great Depression, and unwilling to lose money on an endless parade of Broke Back Mountain clones, the B-School boys at the top of the studio high command are ordering one remake after another. Suddenly everything is a remake. Almost nothing is even slightly original.

Consider Faster. Faster is an incredibly basic revenge plot. I have seen 100 like it, and that is an understatement. I can't name the movie, but I am pretty sure that I saw this exact script before, and I am sure it was done with Steve McQueen.

Faster isn't the only one. By now, you should know that Hollywood has re-made True Grit and The Mechanic! Everything is a fucking remake. They make no bones about it. It's explicit in the titles. There isn't even a pretense of originality.

Even in a case where they are pretending to be original, they are not. Consider The Town. The Town got considerable good press when it came out. It has one of the highest ratings of the year according to RottenTomatoes.com. Dude! This one of the least original plots I have ever seen.

The Town is an incredibly basic story about a guy from the wrong side of the tracks who falls in with his childhood buddies as they launch a criminal enterprise. He lives on the wrong side of the law until his bad profession brings him into contact with little miss wonderful. She's perfect. She is full of all the goodness and middle-class virtue we hope for in a wife/mother/mate. The rest of the story is a drama about the guy trying to break free from his past and move forward into a clean future with his lady love. He is redeemed by love.

How many times have you seen this story before? I have personally seen 20 movies like this. You many have seen more. There is not even the slightest shred of originality in this plot line. Some of the style and content may be a bit different, but as much as things change, they stay the same. It's a tale as old as time.

Even th Wolfman, which I liked in it's theatrical form, is an explicit remake.

Folks, as far as I am concerned Splice is the best picture of 2010. It is the only movie original I have seen this year, with the possible exception of Inception, which I was not crazy about.

Some quick advice for the re-makers of Escape from New York

So, by now we all know that Hollywood is set to re-make Escape from New York in 2011. It's not a moment too soon. This is a much-needed, high-priority project. It is up to you convince the world that it is a rotten idea to attend the Super Bowl in 2014. The fate of future Super Bowls hinges on your performance in this remake. Failure is not an option.

With that said, I have advice beyond casting, to give you. Here it is:

1. Do not touch the plot or the plot-points. You wouldn't dare try it with Shakespeare would you? Don't do it to John Carpenter either. To the extent you change his plot, you will destroy it. Make it verbatim.
2. Don't put a shaggy wig on Jason Statham. Let him go bald. Snake doesn't need hair. A bald Pliskeen is a tougher looking Pliskeen.
3. Shoot most of the film against the green-screen. Do it 3d visual effects-style like 300, Sin City, Sky Captain, and The Spirit. This is the coolest way to shoot a movie today. It is the happening paradigm. Let's go with this approach.
4. Incorporate Parkour. The action scenes in Escape from New York, cool though they may be, are the most out-dated aspect of the film. They can be greatly enhanced and extended with thrilling effets. Ever since Distict B13 and Casino Royal, Parkour has defined the state of the art in action pursuit scenes inside an urban environment. The U.S. national prison of Manhattan Island is the perfect natural habitat for Parkour action scenes.
5. Update the weapons. Snake had a very cool Mac-10 in the original. It still looks cool today. However, we have better stuff on the market now. The greatest assault rifle in the world is the HK416. You can put a silencer on it also. However, the HK XM8 looks more sci-fi. It can be equipped with an ammo drum that hold 100 rounds. This would give Snake quite an advantage.
6. The revolver Snake used looked cool, but it was stupid. He must have fired 24 shots out of that 6-shooter without reloading. A Glock 9mm with a 20 round mag would be more realistic. You should give him a few Claymore land mines also.
7. I've been toying with the idea of a shotgun, because the shotgun is the ultimate weapon, period. It's even better for urban assault missions, as our troops in Iraq will tell you. The AA-12 defines the ultimate in total-annihilation combat. When the New York Cannibals come after Snake, he can gun them down with ease using the AA-12. The AA-12 can also fire a host of rounds, lethal and non-lethal: gas, bean-bag, slug, #000 buckshot, and the mini-grenade! Now that I think of it. Snake Pliskeen must have an AA-12. Gunnery Seargent R. Lee Ermey would strongly endorse this weapon.
8. Accentuate the horrors inside New York. John Carpenter left much to our imaginations. We heard rumors of cannibals, but we saw none. We heard rumors of various street horrors, we didn't see a lot. This is usually a good thing, but you have to remember: we have an agenda here. The mission is counter-punch the post-menopausal hags of Sex and the City. The objective is to communicate what a horrible hell-hole the real New York is through hyperbole. We all know that New York is not really about post-menopausal hags trying on $1,000 pairs of shoes all day long.
9. Add a scene with the three Stygian Witches of New York. Cast Sara Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon, and Kim Cattrall as the Graeae. They should look perfect for the part... without any makeup. This will save production money. Don't allow them to use anything before the shoot except soap and water. They should be interested in having great sex with the Snake. Of course, they all look like Fuckinstein, so Pliskeen refuses their advances.
10. There was a significant flaw in the first Escape from New York. It involves the glider plane. We all know Snake Pliskeen flew into New York on a stealth glider. He landed on the top of the World Trade Center. He was supposed to launch from there with the President on board. He also promised to take a few others out with. Of course, this was absolute rubbish. Nobody I knew bought into this bullshit. It was a simple 1 man glider. It could not carry two. It could not launch from the top of the World Trade Center. Furthermore... we all know the World Trade Center ain't there anymore.
11. The submarine idea in Escape from L.A. wasn't bad at all. You may want to jack it. It would be even cooler if you used a small Naval transport sub to insert Snake SEAL-Style into the City. If he goes into Manhattan Frogman-style, that would be very cool. We associated such combat insertions with our most elite warriors. You could HALO jump him into the prison, but that might tip off the Duke of New York. I think a Navy SEAL frogman style insertion is best.
12. How then does he get out? The same as in the classic. They should try to make it back to the Sub for extraction. The goddamn redskins, who are savages Mr. President, should somehow sink the sub. Maybe they have seized control of one of the mines in the harbor? Maybe they have a 155mm self-propelled Howitzer accidentally left behind by the N.Y. National Guard? In either case, it would be easy to sink a small transport sub.
13. When the sub is destroyed, Cabbie has to drive them out across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Just in case you missed my prior blog entry about the cast, here it is again for you. Of course, this is a necessary chore now that the powers that be have announced that they are going to commence production on the remake of Escape in 2011. So here is you doubly-linked list of players:

1. Snake Plissken => Kurt Russell => Jason Statham
2. The President => Donald Pleasence => Kevin Space
3. Hauk => Lee Van Cleef => Michael Ironside
4. Cabby => Ernist Borgnine => Danny DiVito
5. The Duke of New York => Issac Hayes => Laurence Fishburne
6. Brain => Harry Dean Stanton => Edward Norton
7. Maggie => Adrienne Barbeau => Eva Mendez
8. Rehme => Franke Doubleday => Timmothy Olyphant
9. Girl in Chocked Full o' Nuts => Season Hubley => Lindsay Lohan
10. Rehme => Tom Atkins => Ray Winstone