Amerykah has turned a corner and we should all turn with it. I have thoughts ideas and suggestions but I also have patience and desire for us to be whole and one. I have been speaking a lot lately of the human condition and the generations of Black Americans. i will entertain any and all conversation as long as we can be respectful and grown up. Let the healing begin......
Bryan Singer said in a interview today that he would like to return to helm another X-Men movie. Singer was the director for the first X-Men movie as well as its sequel X2 X-Men United both produced by Fox studios. Singer was not around however for X-Men 3 the Last Stand opting instead to tackle the Superman relaunch.'
Bryan feels that X-Men is a part of him and he has at least one more in him, Personally I say thanks but no thanks. This is not because I didn’t enjoy his movies in fact I did enjoy both his entries in X lore. However I think his superhero movies are a little too cerebral and his does not include the action (which sadly was the only thing Ratner had going for his X-Men movie.).\
Perhaps someone like Jon Favreau, who directed the Robert Downey Jr. movie Iron Man could take a crack at it. He seems to be able to find the right balance of action and story.
Seems like I am full of questions today. So I have to ask myself if I am becoming that which I promised I would never be a grumpy old geek. Anyone over 30 knows what I mean by this, we promised we would not be like our parents, we would not tell our children to turn that music down, we would not say things like “all that moving around is making me tired sit still”, we would not predict the end of the world because they were not doing it like we did it (whatever it was) and we would not judge their media outlets as crap and wish for the old days.
But more and more everyday I find myself doing all those things, especially the last one. In the past few years there has been a new trend on an old street. Remaking, reimagining, ret conning, and revamping my movies and television shows.
To their credit sometimes the “re ing” of the show is really really good. But most of the time it has resulted in an expression of “Why?”
So today during my news hunting I went to one of my favorite geek pages “Sci-Fi wire” where I read a story about the upcoming remake of “Clash of the Titans”. Now truth be told I did not just find out about this remake, but with the amount of geek knowledge I posses some things, especially those that are upsetting, don’t get retained. So the piece goes on about the monsters that will be featured in the remake of the 1981 classic.
It also talks (reads) a little bit about the new Persues and how he was approaching the role. Now here is my issue, other than being grumpy and old, “Clash” is a great movie for it’s time in fact it was the 11th highest grossing movie in 1981 so clearly folks liked it. Mythology is vast and huge, if you want to do something why not continue the story, tell a new chapter, it just seems like Hollywood is full of people right now screaming “Oh I can do that but like fifty times better!”
Well I don’t want you to do it better; I want you to do your own. Hey are Titans after all, can’t they clash more than once? Leave my Coco cola alone, I don’t want your new coke (which tastes like Pepsi). “I don’t want more choices I just want nicer things!” Poor Harry Hamlin has gone from being Persues to being the old Persues. Maggie Smith and Burgess Meredith all but forgotten.
Ok grump over…you may continue remaking my greats into just oks!
Earlier this month I posted a blog about getting actual Iranians to play a Persian character in the upcoming “Prince of Persia” movie. Well today Sci-Fi Wire released news that the upcoming sequel to “Twilight” the teenage vampire love story “New Moon” has added a group of Native Americans to the cast.
Hollywood has a long history of placing white actors in roles as other minorities which kind of require us the audience to buy into the fantasy. As a black man who thinks there is an entire stable of black actors that are highly underused and underrated I have never understood this practice.
In the movie the new cast members Chaske Spencer, Bronson Pelletier, Alex Meraz, Kiowa Gordon and Tyson Houseman along with Taylor Lautner from the first movie play the wolf pack, part of the tribe of Native Americans that lives in Forks, Washington. While the werewolf aspect of the story is only hinted at in the first story, it takes center stage in the second with the wolf pack siding with humans against a group of evil vampires.
I applaud Summit Entertainment for their choice and I for me personally this might be a deciding factor in me actually going to see the movie and not just reading about it online.
"I don’t feel I have done anything that is idol worthy but I learned a long time ago that it is the little everyday things you do that people notice, so be the best you you can be." DJ
"If you don't tell your story someone else might, and they may not tell it as well" The Monkey
"Let he who is without dogshit on his sneaker, take the first step on the white rug!" Whoopi Goldberg
