Remakes - When is Enough Enough?

So today I just watched the trailer for the latest Hollywood horror remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street and am at a loss. This would be the fifth remake from Michael Bay's production company (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Amityville Horror, the Hitcher and Friday the 13th before it) and enough is enough. The previous attempts have been "reimaginings" (at best) but from the trailer, the new Nightmare films looks to be going the "shot for shot" remake approach.

I understand why these get made: Hollywood is bankrupt and retreads have a name value at the box office. But who in their right mind prefers any of these remakes to the "classics" (at least in the horror community)?

Bay is not the only one to be blamed. Other studios crank out remakes of everything from top shelf properties (Halloween), mid-card talent (My Bloody Valentine) to jobbers (the Stepfather) with minimal to moderate success. Tons of movies from the last 40 plus years are being remade and many of them don't upset me as much as these, but that's because I love horror movies so much.

I can safely say I will be skipping this retread when it's released next year and hope that others do as well to finally get Hollywood in line to make some original films once and a while.

I'm an Insider!

With the recent news about Ryan Reynolds being cast in the upcoming Green Lantern film, Hollywood is a buzz with all sorts of information. My snoops inside DC have leaded information about more casting set to be announced later this week:

Providing the voice of Green Lantern drill instructor, Killowog:





WILL FARRELL!



Co-Starring as the villianous Sinestro:





Entourage's Jeremy Piven!





And the other earth GL, Guy Gardner





Comedian Dane Cook




Looks like DC's got a hit on their hands!

Bad Summer Movies

For a majority of my entertainment (comic books, TV, video games, wrestling) I am under the belief that I look for anything that is either REALLY good or REALLY bad. I'm not a fan of middle of the road.

A sitcom or movie that simply panders to a specific audience with the same tired premise? Don't bother me.

A (potentially) great movie like Up or the new Star Trek film are a credit to not only other equally great movies but help shin a light on the crap, as mentioned above.

However, a truly bad film makes my mind spin and my mouth water. I saw such garbage as Freddy Got Fingered, the Rollerball remake and Gigli in the theaters. I go out of my way to watch the Sci-Fi originals and am upset that Hobgoblins 2 is on a very long wait on NetFlix.

The summer movie season is always ripe with either the best and the worst Hollywood has to offer. As the announcements were made, I was apathetic about two major films culled from my childhood: GI Joe and Transformers 2.

I saw the first Transformers film two years ago and was bored. An action movie where robots beat the snot out of each other and I fell asleep. I'm sure I wasn't the only one.

Then, the trailer for GI Joe that aired during the Super Bowl looked bland. It looked like a generic actioner with some big CGI effects and the Hasbro franchise taped to it.

I felt safe in the fact these movies would come and go without me seeing them and my life would be better for it.

Then, I hear on the dirty Intranet that both films are supposed to be horrible. Which makes me want to see them more than anything else.

Maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment.

Two Comic Cons this Weekend?

You would never know. This weekend is my fourth consecutive trip to Philly for Wizard World East. I can never get used to calling it "WWE." Being a wrestling fan, these letters have a different meaning for me.

The last few years, the Wizard Philly con has been lacking when comes to cool guests or goings. I know it will never compare to NY or San Diego, two years ago, when we had Hayden Panettiere (the cheerleader from Heroes), Chicago had Christopher Nolan and assorted cast members from the forthcoming Dark Knight movie.

Mentioning Heroes, also this weekend is Heroes Con in Charlotte which is the only con getting any sort of play online or anywhere for that matter. By booking TWO cons on the East Coast so close to each other (to me, 10 hours is close) forces many publishers to make hard choices.

And from the looks of things, Charlotte is the winner. When comparing the two talent line ups, Philly looks more like a gathering of improv troops, sci-fi TV stars and wrestlers from the 80s than a comic convention.

But, Philly still has a bunch of cool comic industry guests (Dan Didio, Art Baltazar, Garth Ennis, Shane Davis, Joe Kelly, Jeff Katz, Kevin Maguire, etc.) but all the talk is about Charlotte.

I look forward to Wizard World Philly every year and with rumors of it being the last, I plan on making the most of it and having the best time ever.

I just wish people knew it was going on...

ebay - the Scourge of the X-Box 360 Gamer

I've been a user (both seller and buyer) on ebay for quite sometime, going on 10 years with only one problem ever, a KitchenAid Mixer for my wife, which was handled and resolved very quickly.

However, since purchasing an X-Box 360 for Christmas (long story short, if Rock Band 2 actually WORKED on my PS2, I'd still be happy living in the past) I've been trying get some of my favorites (Katamari, Lego series, etc.) as cheaply as possible.

Usually ebay is the best place for low prices, however, for some reason, with three X-Box 360 games I 'attempted' to purchase since December, I've gotten fleeced.

Now, I'm no piker or rube and made sure I purchased from sellers with thousands and thousands of positive feedbacks, but this did not stop these sellers from IMMEDIATELY closing up shop the SECOND I send them the money.

I have gotten all my money back from from these frauds and had to treck to my local stores to get these games, however, I'm just putting this out there. I find it odd that off all my transactions through ebay, I've never had the frequency of problems I've had of recent once I started buying X-Box games.

Maybe someone's trying to tell me something...