Angry Puppy

I’m sure all of you have seen the fake script for Michael Bay’s The Dark Knight. If not, read it here.

Now some enterprising soul has created a mocku-trailer (see what I just did there?) for Michael Bay’s A Nightmare on Elm Street.

I don’t know. Needs more explosions and bikini babes to capture that authentic Krueger experience.

The big difference between this clip and the script for Bay’s The Dark Knight is that Michael Bay’s production company Platinum Dunes is actually remaking A Nightmare on Elm Street, along with Friday the 13th, The Birds and a few others.

The worst part is that I feel compelled to watch them all.

[Via /Film]

It was the best of times.

It was the worst of times.

The Watchmen trailer looks great. There are so many ways that this could go wrong (The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, anyone?), but so far, so good. Several of the scenes seem taken straight from the comic’s panels, and they managed to get the cheesy costumes just cheesy enough without offending modern sensibilities too much. And “The End Is the Beginning Is the End” is a nice touch. Take that, Batman & Robin.

I only have a couple of concerns, which is a good thing.

• I do wish that the trailer showed us a more out-of-shape [read: chubby] Nite Owl, but that might be asking too much of Hollywood, even if that aspect is essential to the character and story.
• “From the visionary director of 300“. Maybe they’ll add in some gay Persians for The Comedian to bash just for the hell of it.

The Caprica trailer is not good. It’s not bad. It’s just there. It looks like it would be an interesting movie in and of itself, but I don’t get a BSG-vibe from it, other than the music. In all fairness to the show, think back to some of the old BSG promos that the Sci Fi Channel put out. I love you guys for giving me hours of Saturday morning entertainment (e.g. Rock Monster), but BSG is not a Tom Cruise movie from the 80s.

If you haven’t seen the trailer for the re-make of The Day the Earth Stood Still, have a look here:

Yes, you did just see Keanu Reeves as Klaatu and Jennifer Connelly as Helen Benson, though she’s a microbiologist this time around.

It’s interesting to see how trailers have changed in the last half-century. Here’s the 1951 original:

What do you all think? Will Keanu Reeves as Klaatu be just another entry in our list of worst cast roles, or is casting him as a monotone humanoid a stroke of genius?

Angry Puppy Fact of the Day: The Day the Earth Stood Still was based on “Farewell to the Master”, a short story by Harry Bates. I haven’t read it, but the synopsis makes it seem a lot more interesting than the original movie. If any of you have read it, join our new group at LibraryThing and give it a review.

We didn’t mean to do it, but Joss Whedon turns up a lot in this week’s episode:

• Headlines: Sarah Michelle Gellar’s favorite male roles, Doctor Horrible gets a trailer
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8, Volume 2: “No Future for You” and “Anywhere but Here”
• The Astonishing X-Men: Volume 4; Also Whedon.
• Pride High; No Whedon.
• Doctor Who: “Silence in the Library”
• Solar Flare; Yeah we also found a Whedon reference there somehow.
• Wonder Showzen
• Frameline: The Polymath, or, The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman
• The 9 Greatest Bi and Gay Female Characters in the Sci-Fi/Geek World

All this and Marc’s tour of San Francisco comics shops.

In case you haven’t seen it, here’s the trailer for Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog that we mention in the episode:

Constantine came on FX the other night, and I re-watched it, pretending that it had nothing to do with Hellblazer. Viewed through that lens, it’s not so bad, but it still falls in my dead zone: neither good enough to sit through nor bad enough to laugh through. And in the interest of full disclosure, I admit that I failed to disassociate it from the comic series. I mean, come on! It’s John Constantine, innit!

I’d love to hear from people who think otherwise (it’s so subjective), but I found this Constantine more tiresome than compelling. A suicide-induced Flatliners moment damned him, and now, like some two-bit exorcist, he goes door to door sending errant demons back to Hell to curry God’s favor (yawn) so he can get into heaven. Hey! Isn’t that almost the plot of Reaper? Where’s the nuance from the comics?

Fortunately for you, me and everyone we know, Tilda Swinton has a habit of making otherwise meh movies worth watching. Here she is as the wonderfully androgynous archangel Gabriel:

John Constantine, Tilda Swinton in hooker pants kicking Keanu Reeves’ ass, and, hey, it’s even got boy-of-the-moment Shia LeBeouf as Chas… How could it have gone so wrong?

We’ve made it clear that we think Keanu Reeves as Constantine is some of the worst casting ever. Re-watch the clip above and imagine the same lines acted as if they were based on any version of John Constantine from the comics. Not so bad, right? But that faux-intense effect that Mr. Reeves uses kills any affection and respect I had for the character.

I’m not savvy enough to discern if that’s a fault of the acting or the directing, but here’s director Francis Lawrence’s IMDB entry. It’s impressive in its own right, but there’s not much in the way of turning other successful dark comic series into films.

As we said in the vlog, don’t enter the Hellblazer universe though this movie. As an alternative, I’ve put some of my favorite TPBs in this handy Amazon widget.

I’d love to hear your recommendations. And I especially want to hear from those who liked Constantine the film. John Constantine is too close to my heart for me to be truly objective, and I’m open to hearing what good things I might have missed in the movie.