Cinemash – the waste of time

I think everyone loves a good parody. We all like to laugh, we all enjoy watching a funny take on classic ideas. Think of the Airplane and Scary Movie films. (well maybe just the first 2 of each anyway)

Right now, the dearth of ideas in Hollywood has spawned the rebirth of the parody. Instead of making new ideas, Hollywood is enjoying churning out near endless numbers of parody films filled with in-jokes of even the least popular films. Sadly few of these films are really worth watching.

We Are The Spartans, Date Movie, Scary Movie 4, and so on. The list is ever growing and just screams “We want your money, but can’t think of a better way to take it.”

There are many people that have realized that making a good parody is more than mashing a bunch of scenes from various films together and trying to making fun of them. They have realized that just saying this is a funny take on a serious film (if films like I Know What You Did Last Summer can be called serious) is not enough to make it funny. So they decided to make their own shorter versions of these parodies.

Thus Cinemash was created in collaboration between MEAN Magazine and Zune. But along the way they forgot – or purposefully excluded – people over the age of 15.

Here are the problems. First is the fact that if you do not use Microsoft’s Zune you will have trouble getting to see any of these parodies. Which excludes a lot of people of all ages.

Another issue is that Cinemash will be using real actors to make the parodies. Why is that a problem? Well some of the actors jumping to the forefront of this idea include: Will Arnett, Zooey Deschanel, Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, and Milo Ventimiglia.

I had to look up who each and every one of these actors are. Arnett is known for his roles in Semi-Pro, The Brothers Solomon, Hot Rod, Let’s Go To Prison, and the television show Arrested Development. Deschanel is famous for The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy [horrendous film – read the books], The New Guy, Failure To Launch, and the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries Tin Man. Leavitt claims Beethoven, 10 Things I Hate About You, Stop-Loss, the television show Roseanne, and the upcoming GI Joe Movie (which I have doubts about). Ventimiglia has television’s Gilmore Girls, the movie Rocky Balboa, and back to television with the current Heroes.

In effect a group of B actors that few over the age of about 25 would barely ever recognize anywhere.

So Cinemash is not showing much interest in anything of quality, just a way to draw money and attention. Which means that the acting, and the writing, of the parodies have to be spectacular to be worth the time.

But who would know. If you go to MEAN Magazine’s site (meanmag.net) you won’t find anything but a very unappealing teaser trailer. If you go to the site that they claim has current parodies (zune.net/cinemash) you will find that the page does not exist.

The outlook is so bleak you have to wonder why you should care. Especially since it seems whoever designed the website, and those in charge of the Cinemash idea, don’t apparently.

Perhaps I am too old to get it. I can accept that. But generally I would expect that a parody should be funny. Which means good writing and even better acting. Neither appears to be present in the teaser trailer. I expect that a quality product deserves a quality presentation, which this does not have.

I am sure that Microsoft and Mean Magazine will be hyping the hell out of this idea. Based on what I can find right now, I would suggest that you skip it. Anyone under the age of 25 might disagree, under 15 likely will. But if you are older, or have higher expectations, this is not worth the time. In my opinion.

Will a Hex be good for DC Comics?

You know when news comes out on April Fool's Day, you have question it's validity. But some things are too silly to be made up. Take the decision from DC Comics as an example. They are moving forward with a film based on the great character Jonah Hex.

You must recall this character. Jonah Hex was born in 1839, under a bad sign. He was abandoned by his drunk parents, and taken in by Apaches. He was then abandoned by them. So he joins the U.S. Cavalry until the Civil War when he joins the Confederate Army (though he did not support slavery - one of the vital requirements to a prosperous Southern economy). Eventually he becomes a bounty hunter scarred with a "Mark of the Demon". Somehow he gets transported to the year 2050, gets married, has a child, is abandoned by both and then returns to the Old West. He is then shot by a bank robber, stuffed and put on display outside of New York City.

How can anyone forget that comic book character.

Honestly there are elements of the story that might be interesting. But there have been few Western's made in the past 2 decades that were really worth watching. Add in Josh Brolin as Hex, and John Malkovich as a voodoo user that wants to create a zombie army to win for the Confederate South, and the potential starts to go bad fast. (I believe they offered Malkovich a lot of money for this one.)

It is also reported to have Megan Fox in some capacity, Will Arnett as Hex's Union soldier partner in the battle, and Michael Shannon as the ringleader of a gladiator circus. I swear I am not making this up.

If it were just a western, I might buy it. If Brolin was not involved I might be interested. But voodoo armies? A wild west gladiator circus? Really?

DC Comics has long been regarded as the poor red-headed step-child to Marvel. This was because DC was very silly and childish in their storylines as opposed to the generally more complex and compelling stories of Marvel. When it comes to movie conversions of these comics, DC has generally followed that same policy (with the exception of the latest Batman movies - based on the graphic novel and not the comic book). Thus Marvel shines, and has a huge audience following.

I don't think that this film, of a mostly unknown and uncared for comic book character will work. DC might as well make a movie based on Metamorpho or Doom Patrol for all their popularity.

I'll be looking for the trailer, and we will see.