Full trailer for Let Me In, the American adaptation of the book Let the Right One In.

I’m hearing a lot of people bitching that this movie appears to be a shot for shot remake of the Swedish movie. These people are clearly on crack. Yes, there is undoubtedly be a few shots that are similar. They’re adapting the same same story. There’s only so many ways you can shoot two kids sitting on a jungle gym playing with a Rubix cube. I don’t think they should deliberately go out of their way to make anything different from the previous film. They just adapt the book how they adapt the book. There are bound to be similarities between the two movies.

Besides, you can’t please everyone. People will bitch if it’s too much like the first film. They’ll bitch if it’s not close enough to the first one. Whatever.

All I care about is whether it’s a good movie or not. The book was brilliant, the Swedish film was brilliant and this movie has potential to be brilliant. We’ll see. Everything I’ve seen so far looks good to me.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/thelasthouseontheleft/

Ya know… I hate to say it… but this looks like it could be a pretty decent remake.

Actually, I don’t hate to say it at all. I’m very glad to s ay it. I want this to be good. I really do. What I’d hate is if it turns out to be another stupid, pointless remake.

I’ve talked about my position on remakes in general and I’ve talked a bit about how I feel about horror remakes specifically (since they’re do so many of them these days) and, from what I can tell, Last House on the Left is a good example of a movie that really could stand a decent, modern remake.

Last House on the Left was an important horror movie, but it was a dated horror movie. It was definitely a product of the low budget, Texas Chainsaw Massacre era of movies (though it predates TCM by two years) and it did a fine job of being intensely disturbing and graphic. Wes Craven came out of no where and redefined what a horror movie could be.

People talk a lot about “torture porn” these days. Acting as though this trend of overtly violent and gruesome movies like Hostel and Saw is some new thing. But really, Last House on the Left and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre did that whole scene back in the 70s. And they did it well. Fuck that “less is more” bullshit. That’s fine if you’re doing a suspense movie. But that anti-gore attitude in horror can be a bit pretentious. Sometimes more is more. Sometimes it’s seeing characters that you care about being horribly maimed and disfigured that can get to you.

Last House on the Left didn’t beat around the bush. The main characters (a small gang of vicious criminals) were sadistic, vile, evil people. And the violence they inflicted on these two teenage girls was intense and unrelenting.

There’s one shot in particular that really disturbed me. Mostly because I didn’t expect it. The gang is two guys, a chick and a teenage boy. They’ve got this teenage girl out in the woods and are kind of casually raping and torturing her. The shot I’m talking about shows two of the guys talking about something or other, and the girl is on the ground, just barely in frame, crying and writhing. While they’re talking, the woman gang member’s head pops up into frame to say something. It pops up from between the tortured girl’s legs, where you suddenly realize that she was down there eating her out. I remember seeing that and going “OMG I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY WENT THERE!” That was some intense, crazy shit that I certainly didn’t see coming. It was like “oh yeah, rape, torture, murder… AND LESBIAN RAPE”.

Anyway, my point is that while Last House on the Left was kickass for it’s time, and an important chapter in the history of horror movies, it was also kind of silly. The music was goofy, and while that was somewhat intentional, it still pushes it into that weird corner of low budget 70s movies along with Walking Tall and Billy Jack. Those movies that you watch, and enjoy, but you also kind of have to say “well, the 70s were kind of lame”.

Looking at this trailer (which seems to give away pretty much the entire movie, which is fine for giving me an idea of where’s they’re taking it, but really annoying for anyone who isn’t familiar with the story already) it seems that they’ve followed the original story pretty closely. From what I’ve read about it, they didn’t hold back on the violence, gore and disturbing nature of the original either. And, from what I can tell, it looks like they’ve gone back to the original story (which was cut and re-edited to appease the ratings board) where the daughter is alive when her parents find her. I dig that they did that.

So here’s to hoping that this remake is decent. I’m typically skeptical of remakes in general, but I always want them to be good. I’m perfectly cool with remaking a movie if you can bring something new and interesting to it. I just get tired of forcing movies that were otherwise fine just as they were into the cookie cutter standards of today’s horror movies.

A small bit of trivia for you… the main bad guy character (the gentleman on the left in the picture above, played by David Hess) was named Krug, a variation on the name of a kid who bullied Wes Craven when he was a child. That bully’s name was Freddy Krueger.

Currently Listening: Dream Weaver / Gary Wright

Black Dynamite. It comes out next year.

Currently Listening: Britney Spears – Out From Under

So my mom prompted me to look up the movie on IMdb to see if Chaka is going to be in it. Chaka, in case you don’t know, is a character on the original Land of the Lost TV show. He was this retarded caveman kid.

After further investigation, I’ve discovered that not only is Chaka in the movie, but he’s being played by Lonely Island member Jorma Taccone, who you may know from this video. He’s the guy who isn’t Andy Samberg.

Also…

Holy shit! They’ve made what may be the worst TV show in history into what might be the best movie in history!

HOUSE Girl Olivia Wilde To Star In TR2N!!

I am – Hercules!!

Months after showing everybody its teaser trailer, “TR2N” is starting to cast human actors.

Olivia Wilde, who played Marissa Cooper’s lesbian love on “The OC” before turning up on “House” as Candidate 13 last season, is all aboard.

She’s pretty!

According to The Hollywood Reporter:

Wilde will play a worker in the virtual world who tries to help fight Master Control Program, the villainous intelligence protocol that was the nemesis in the original film.

Wilde was two years from being born when the original “TRON” hit cinemas in 1982.

Also cast is Wilde’s “Turistas” co-star Beau Garrett (“Made of Honor,” “Rise of the Silver Surfer”), who will play “a siren in the virtual world.”

Jeff Bridges reprises the role of Kevin Flynn in the sci-fi sequel, due out in 2011.

Find all of The Hollywood Reporter’s story on the matter here.

Dude… Thirteen on House is the fucking HOTNESS.

She is like, supernaturally hot. She’s the kind of hot that transcends normal hot and becomes some kind of incomprehensible hot. A have a theory about her character though.

Remember a couple of seasons back when we had the original team and Cameron thought that she was dying of some kind of disease and so she went on like, a crank binge and turned into a big slut and had sex with Chase? Then she found out she wasn’t dying and went back to being normal Cameron?

I think they LIKED her like that, but didn’t want to lose regular old Cameron as a character. So they came up with Thirteen, who is like a super intensified version of “I think I’m gonna die so I’m gonna be a slutty druggy” Cameron. She’s hotter, she’s sluttier, she’s more of a druggy.

I approve either way. And I am QUITE down with TR2N. Which really should have been called Tr0nz.

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE HD

While it definitely looks cheesy, I don’t give a bag of dicks. It also looks awesome. Really, all I needed to see was Wolverine using his claws to slow himself down on a motorcycle.

Now, in the realm of BAD IDEAS, I give you this:

Yes yes a thousand times yes.

Though i wish we could get a trailer in decent quality.

So… a couple more casting rumors for the new Wolverine solo movie.

Apparently, according to Ain’t it Cool, it’s going to have both Gambit and Deadpool.

The guy playing Gambit is some dude from Friday Night Lights named Taylor Kitsch.

The other rumor is that Deadpool is going to show up. And that he’s going to be played by Ryan Reynolds.

And last, but not to be the least, it’s looking like the young William Stryker (played by Brian Cox in X-Men 2) will be played by Michael C. Hall, who is best known from his work in Six Feet Under and the awesome show Dexter.

They’ll be (apparently) joining the already cast Hugh Jackman (naturally) as Wolverine and Liev Schreiber as Sabertooth.

I’m pretty ambivalent about Gambit. If I cared about the character more, I’d probably be all like “NO WAY MOTHERFUCKERS!!!” and insisting that Harry Connick Jr play Gambit. Or Josh Holloway from Lost. But honestly, I’ve never liked Gambit. He’s a total throw away, garbage character. He’s a wannabe Wolverine that was invented when there just wasn’t enough Wolverine to go around.

I’m somewhat excited about Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool. Not because I like Deadpool (never really got into him) but because Ryan Reynolds has been going on about wanting to play Deadpool in a movie for years and years (since before Blade 3 at least) and since I’ve got a minor man-crush on Ryan Reynolds, I just want him to be happy.

I’m much more excited about Liav Schreiber playing Sabertooth. I wish he’d played him in the first movie, since Tyler Mane was just kind of like… a wrestler with silly eyebrows when he played Sabertooth.

I’m hoping this Wolverine movie is good. Hugh Jackman was, by far, the most awesome thing about the X-Men movies and Wolverine is a pretty awesome character.

::edit::

Michael C. Hall is not playing William Stryker. Danny Huston is. Lame.

Danny Huston will be fine, but I dig Michael C. Hall.

So… I went on a big rant about how I wasn’t going to watch trailers any more and wasn’t going to look at promotional material anymore and how I wasn’t going to let the Hollywood Machine dictate what movies I wanted to see and bla bla bla.

But apparently I was lying because I just watched the new, Joker filled, trailer for The Dark Knight and about lost my shit.

I can’t wait! Fuck!

The trailer is here:

It’s fucking crazy and brought a tear to my eye, being the massive Joker fan that I am.

New posters are… these:

I went to see The Mist today. I saw these two posters in the lobby.

I’m SO there.

OMG. I crapped my pants when I saw this. Neil Patrick Harris… on a unicorn… pretending to be Jesus. There is nothing they could have done to make me want to see this movie more than I already did. Brilliant marketing. 

Then there’s this:

And Indy.

Harrison Ford is old as fuck!

And Watchmen set photos

With, I believe, a little blury Rorschach action to boot!

Currently Listening: eddie vedder – the wolf

 So, in addition to Simon Pegg playing Scottie in JJ Abrams’ Star Trek reboot… it’s now been announced that John Cho is playing Sulu.

What?

Yes, John Cho of Harold and Kumar fame. Cho is also responsible for naming Jennifer Coolidge a MILF in the first American Pie.

This strikes me as particularly odd casting. Mostly because, like, it seems like they went “Okay, compile a list of all of the popular young asian actors for us to choose from!” and then a couple of days later they came back with the list and they looked at it and it had one name on it, John Cho.

Personally, I would have gotten Daniel Dae Kim who plays Jin on Lost, but that’s just me.

If only because I have a really hard time picturing John Cho running around and looking badass and psycho with his shirt off and attacking people with a sword, which Sulu is inclined to do when infected with the horny disease.

Yes, it was a complete shock when George came out of the closet. I didn’t see that one coming at all.

Simon Pegg, aka Shawn of Shawn of the Dead fame, is playing Scotty in JJ Abrams’ Star Trek movie. Fucking awesome!

And then there’s this bit of news.

You know the last episode of Lost when Jack was…

hold up… spoiler alert.

…

okay.

You know the last episode of Lost when Jack was talking to that dude on the satalite phone and the dude was all like “Hang tight good buddy, we’re gonna rescue you and shit!” and Jack was like “OMG!”

Well, apparently the guy on the other end of the phone was Fisher Stevens. And apparently, he’s going to be coming on the show as a regular. Also, apparently, he looks like crap.

Another goddamned vampire movie in the works. I think this puts us up to like, ten or something.

Via Dark Horizons

“Fright Night” Remake Planned

By Garth Franklin
Wednesday September 19th 2007 12:19am

Shock Till You Drop

reports that Sony’s Screen Gems is currently seeking a writer to pen a remake of the 1985 vampire classic “Fright Night”.

The original followed teenage horror film fan Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale) who believes a vampire (Chris Sarandon) has moved into the large house next door.

He soon seeks the help of veteran vampire movie star Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall) who, along with his friend and girlfriend, think he’s mentally ill. It was successful enough to spawn a sequel in 1988.

Producer Scott Strauss (“Breach”), who was previously attached, apparently wants to take the story in a different direction – one involving an amusement park.

And then there’s this:

via Joblow.com

From Potter to Bond?
Sep. 13, 2007

by: Dave Davis

What’s a young actor to do once he finishes with a colossally successful franchise like HARRY POTTER? How about move to another globally recognized character?

There were some minor mumblings a few years back that boywizard Daniel Radcliffe was being pursued to portray famed spy James Bond in his formative years, based on a series of YOUNG BOND books by Charlie Higson. According to a source we’ll call ‘Average Kadavra’, there’s interest in the wand-waving thespian once again for the part… and the Radcliffe camp is in fact considering it.

The YOUNG BOND books tell of the future superagent’s college years in the 1930s to match Ian Fleming’s original Bond, though it’s assumed the movie stories would be refitted to fall more in line with the character’s latest screen incarnation.

While it’s understandable that Radcliffe, two POTTER pics away from graduation, might want to cement another almost-guaranteed franchise (those mansions don’t buy themselves!), it’s not like 007 needs the extra attention thanks to the recent reinvigoration from CASINO ROYALE. But perhaps the property owners want to piggyback on the success of Daniel Craig’s buff espionage bruiser.

Extra Tidbit: Youth-oriented Bond versions have been attempted before: the book “003½: The Adventures of James Bond Junior” and the 1990s cartoon JAMES BOND JR., who fought the forces of S.C.U.M. (Saboteurs and Criminals United in Mayhem).

I am 100% there.

There’s a few things going for this movie. The first, and paramount, is that John C. Riley is simply fucking hilarious. The second is that the concept of doing a parody of Walk The Line is just so weird and from left field that it can’t help but be intriguing. The third is that I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t completely in love with Jenna Fischer and kind of want to pee in her butt. And fourth, any movie that has Eddie Vedder in it has to at least be watched once by me. He’s not in this trailer, but he was in the trailer I saw before Superbad a couple weeks ago.

Further more, that’s Jack White playing Elvis. Paul Rudd playing John Lennon. Jack Black playing Paul McCartney, Jason Scharzman playing Ringo, That “I’m a Mac” guy playing George Harrison and… Frankie Muniz playing Buddy Holly.