Naked Gun reboot?

There are some film characters who are so indelibly linked to the actors who created them that it is almost impossible for someone else to take it over. One case is Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau in the long running Pink Panther franchise that consisted of eleven films. Sellers acted in five of them that were the most successful. Other efforts, even with extremely good actors like Alan Arkin, Roger Moore, and Steve Martin fared abysmally. [Read more…]

Joan Fontaine, 1917-2013

Joan Fontaine has died at the age of 96. I remember her most for her performance in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 film Rebecca, as the young bride tormented by a sense of inadequacy compared to her husband’s first wife, whose memory is jealously preserved by one of film’s classic villains, the malevolent housekeeper Mrs. Danvers, played to perfection by Judith Anderson. [Read more…]

The Hungry Games: Catching Fur

I love the Muppets, and the Sesame Street parodies using them are often hilarious. Parodies tend to be better appreciated if you are familiar with the items being made fun of but I found this parody of the newly released The Hunger Games: Catching Fire to be enjoyable because even though I have not seen the original films, I had read enough about them to be aware of the story. [Read more…]

The Spy Who Loved Cookies

Sesame Street parodies are fun to watch and I liked this James Bond one. Note how the music is evocative of the originals without infringing on the copyright, though I doubt anyone would be so crass as to sue Sesame Street

Interestingly, this parody featured a woman as the villain and it got me to wondering if any of the villains in the Bond films had been women. I have seen many but not all of the films, and all the evildoers have been men. [Read more…]

Heaven is not for real

It looks like 2014 is going to be big year from religious mush in films. In addition to the Noah film I wrote about yesterday, Heaven Is For Real will be released around Easter, supposedly based on a true story about a little boy who had a near death experience and then gave a remarkably detailed and accurate account of all the people and things that he had seen in heaven, including things that he could not have known about. [Read more…]