Jason strikes again! And so does the remake syndrome

I see that on February 13th 2009, a remake of Friday 13th slashes its way on to our cinema screens, note it is not another sequel as the 13 others before but a remake of the original.

It seems to me that the Hollywood has reach the end of its creative cycle and is finding it increasingly hard to produce any thing new that is good, hence they are going back to the good old classics favorites we grew up with.

Evidence can be seen in the proliferation of remakes which are now being churned out by the tinsel town movie making machinery.

There are so many old movies and TV series that are being remade its amazing, Starsky and Hutch, Knight Rider, Battle Star Galactica, Beverley Hills 90210 and Charlie’s Angels.

They also remade Psycho, the avengers and Mission Impossible; of course some of these remakes were so bad the original should not have been touched at all. (Look what they did to Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho”)

Let’s not forget all the classic songs that are now being sampled and released to a new generation as though they are new.

What is the significance of this? Does this say that in this millennium Hollywood and indeed the world has peaked and reached the end of its creative cycle.

Let’s not forget the new installments of Rocky and Rambo, plus a Terminator 4 is now in production as you read and we have the Terminator TV series. 

The entertainment events of our past are now the highlights of our future.

I am sure there are quite a few more remakes you can add that I might have missed and like Arnold they are now promising …..

“I’ll be back”

It was intriguing and riveting, for thirty minutes I was glued to my chair awaiting the outcome of this suspenseful tale.

What am I blogging about? An Episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents which I was watching yesterday on the AMC classic cable channel.
The classic Alfred Hitchcock series are example that class is for ever while form is only temporary , these shows first aired in on television back in 1955 that was 53 years ago, I was not born yet and my mother would have been 10.
But yet the Alfred Hitchcock series have withstood the test of time and continue to be a regular staple on television through out the world.

What is unique about the series is  it featured some major names that some are now long gone, Joseph Cotton Vincent Price, Robert Redford, Burt Reynolds, William Shatner,Charles Bronson Dick Van Dyke to name a few. You also see some actors who became stars later in bit parts like Clint Eastwood etc.
What is also outstanding was the opening credits with the signature ‘funeral March” song and the dark humor dead pan delivery of Alfred Hitchcock himself as he did both the intro and the extro to the programs.

I am quite a fan of Hitchcock I find him inspirational not only because of his Director skills but also in the way he marketed himself.
He is a director who managed to be even better known than the movie stars he directed.
So for better or worse my name usually becomes a focal point of attention when I am involved in a production regardless of who else is involved.

Some years ago, I read 1300 pages of an Alfred Hitchcock biography so I am quite an expert on his life movies and the same series.
When next you see the old black and white show starts up and the larger than life Hitchcock steps in with is dead English delivery “Good Evening” keep tuned in, you will not regret it…

Click on below link for some humorous Hitchock intro and extros and the famous theme ….Until next time Good Night

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajRpxpYRNwY

Remember watching Kung Fu in the Plaza?

Asiba you seem to have been quite a theatre (Cinema) pimp, who spent quite a bit time in the pit, when I first started going to the cinema that’s the only part of the cinema I went. For one pit admission was $2.50 which was the lowest ticket price.
As far as I was concerned, you saw the same movie as the people in the circle and the balcony.
Let me explain how cinemas were segregated up through out the 60’s and 80’s The pit was the area right in front of the screen then there was a barrier midway which separated and created the “circle”, the balcony speaks for it self.
I can’t tell you what the ticket prices of the circle and balcony was cause I never went there… I was always a cheap Ali Singh from school.
Of course if you had a date you could not take her in the pit, which would be dissing the girl, your friends would laugh at you, and her, and you could forget any baby making activities you might have in mind. Fortunately for me I never had a date back then, or unfortunately.
Some times I would pay for the pit and sneak into the circle when the attendant wasn’t looking. Girls seemed to frown on that too.
I spent most of my time in the Olympic cinema, which was close to the buses, and then I watched kung fu and spaghetti westerns in the Empire and Plaza.
Westerns like “The Good the Bad and the ugly” “Trinity is still my name” and “A Fistful of dollars”

Kung Fu Starring Silver Fox, Wang Yu and Sonny Chiba in “The Drunken Master” “Snake and Crane Arts of Shoalin and “The Big Boss”.

Remember people use to say how the Roxy had in chinks?
When ever any technical malfunction happened in any cinema in Barbados people would shout “Roxy”! ….
The Globe and Vista were considered up market cinemas at that time, that’s where you took a girl when you wanted to impress her..
And here endeth my Boyce Voice Bajan Cinema nostalgia for the day…..

Why so serious?
Put a smile on that face…
That one of the blurbs to the latest Batman flick “The Dark Knight” and that’s exactly what the movie does; it puts a smile on your face in a Gothic kind of way, compliments of Heath Ledger who does a brilliantly evil personification of the joker. It is to die for…
“The Dark knight” puts the other Batman Movies in the shade; the concept has stepped up a notch above the simplistic comic book plots utilised before.
The plot has twists, turns, and surprises, Watch out for the appearance of the gruesome “two face” character and how he becomes villain number two of the movie.

The star of the movie is not Christian Bale as the Batman, Yes he is the Dark Knight, but he is over shadowed by Heath’s ghoulish Joker.
The joker is tight! Check out his pencil disappearing trick,  this morbidly humorous clown is really effective.  Some how he manages to inject a comical flair into evil deeds like blowing up a hospital. The Joker’s make up is intriguingly imperfect and it adds to his ghoulish mystique.

Maybe what makes the joker so brilliantly fascinating is the knowledge that since Ledger died just before the movie’s release, there would be no sequel to his performance.
Did you see Heath’s in the controversially gay “Broke Back Mountain”? I didn’t, from what I heard about the movie it did not sound like something I could stomach. Therefore my first introduction to ledger as an actor turns out to be his farewell performance, as the joker in the Dark Knight…

Why so serious? put a smile on that face…. Go out and see “The Dark Knight”

Today is Good Friday! It is a Good Friday for you to go to church and praise the lord, should you even be on a computer today anyway? You evil person you!
In an effort to redeem your soul and mine let’s blog on something religious.

When I was a little boy like two thousand years ago, it was traditional that every Easter Bajans flocked to the cinema (the Roxy or Olympic) to see “The Crucifixion”, a nice conservative movie that would lead you back to the lord.

Then in 2004 you were able to witness the “Crucifixion of Jesus” as you had never seen it before, with the release of Mel Gibson’s controversial movie “The Passion of Christ”.
You winced in your seat as Jesus was beaten mercilessly, his skin ripped away in bloody explosive strips, if that did not bring you to the lord nothing would.
It actually took some people away from the cinema as they were unable to stomach the tortuous scenes.

 Was the passion of Christ was it just another commercial attempt for Hollywood and Mel Gibson to make money the movie generated over 370 million dollars while only costing 25 million to make. That’s enough profit to make you praise the lord.

Was ”The Passion” effective in highlighting the cause of Christianity?
Was it successful in getting evil people such as your self who do not go to church on Good Friday but stay home instead reading Boyce Voice to at least be aware of that Jesus died on the cross to save sinners like yourself.

If you do not go to church today the least you can do is rent the “Passion of Christ” and watch over the Easter weekend, if you did go to church I hope you prayed for the rest of us. 

A closing note, if you do not take heed of the old bajan saying “not to go in the sea on good Friday for you will drown”,

Take heed that the Metrological office has put out an advisory saying the same thing this weekend, warning sea bathers about dangerous sea conditions, Maybe it’s the power of the lord at work…

Have a “Good Friday!”

When I first heard the title of this movie it did not grab me at all. “No country for Old Men”.
Sounds like some senior citizen picture, then I started reading good reviews and then it won “Best picture of the year” at the 2008 Academy Awards. So I decided to check it out.

The picture was intriguing and quite exciting at some points; the plot revolves around what happens when a hunter happens to stumble on a scene of a drug shoot out in the desert, finds and keeps a suitcase of 10 million dollars in drug money.

For some strange reason drug pushers have issues with people holding on to their money, they usually get upset and send people to kill you, your family and retrieve their hard earned funds.
That’s is what happens in the movie when a psychotic hit man is sent to retrieve the misappropriated funds.

I am not really a fan of Tommy Lee Jones but he did a good job in his characterization of the “old country” sheriff, as did Josh Brolin as the hunter who becomes hunted when he finds the cash.

But the real star is the dark humorless killer excellently played by Mexican actor Javier Bardem.
It is he who really carries the movie, his winning the 2008 award for best supporting actor is testimony to that.

Like I said “No country for Old Men” is an intriguing and exciting movie, it’s different in that some times they are some significant plot developments that you don’t see and are left wondering as to what transpired, like for example the freaking end.

What I did not like about the movie was the ending, frankly it did not have any, it just sort of stopped and the credits came up.
There is no climatic exciting build up heralding the ending it just sort of prematurely stops, and you know being premature is never a good thing.
If a movie is going to win the best picture of the year it should have a “best” ending and “No Country for Old Men” does not have that.
When it comes to an ending this movie needs to go and come again…
which is what you usually have to do when you have been premature!

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Boyce went to the Globe cinema to see the latest Sylvester Stallone movie “John Rambo” last night, I walked out in the middle of it.

What an appalling piece of violent crap it was!

The movie has a proliferation of scenes where people are being massacred, villages of men, women, children and babies are being machined gunned chopped and stabbed. Quite frankly I found it hard to look at the screen at times.

The plot of the movie is based in Burma where these things were actually happening. In fact the movie opens with real scenes of bloated and rotting corpses including dead Burmese monks. The fact that the movie was filmed on location while the massacres were happening seems to make a theatrical mockery of the actual events.

Now I should let you know I am no prude when it comes to movie violence, in fact almost all my favorite flicks “Kill Bill” “Unforgiven” “Terminator” “Face off” “Pulp fiction” “The Matrix” are all violence based.But there is a big difference between a movie with a well written story line and good character development which supports and justifies the acts of violence you see.

Call me a hypocrite but seeing “Neo” flipping and firing at “sentinels” in “The Matrix” is different to watching soldiers kicking down doors and machine gunning fleeing mothers with babes in arms like you see in “John Rambo.

The scenes in Rambo are a brutal reminder of the massacres which are currently happening in neighboring Guyana, it is not a fantastical concept happening in some far off place. I saw some of the photos of victims of those attacks on the “Bajan Reporter” blog and it was not beautiful.

I am a movie violence fanatic but you have to draw the line some where, “John Rambo” is where I drew that line. I left before it finished, you should leave before it starts…