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.

Movie Preview: Dance Flick

It's been a while since a Wayans family movie has been in theaters. It's been even longer since one of their movies has been worth watching. But the latest try is a trip back to the roots of the family, parody of movies that are in themselves a joke.

The latest movie, Dance Flick, looks to take on the flood of films that are more or less spontaneous dances strung together by the loosest and most trivial of plots. Films of this genre includes Stomp The Yard, Save the Last Dance, You Got Served, Flashdance (ok that one actually had a plot of some sort, but it's older than most of the audience going to movies this summer), and so on. So we would expect that this Wayans project should be an easy target, and far more entertaining than the movies it parodies.



From the trailer we can see that like all parody films it's hit and miss. But I think it's hitting more often than not. All the elements look to be in place. The dumb street guys. The 1 educated street kid. The White girl trying desperately to be accepted by Black kids she has no connection to. The general void of intelligence by anyone under the age of 72 in these films. And so on.

The baby popping out and striking a pose is cute, and way over the top. The scene bending Flashdance into a quasi-homoerotic experience is spot on. And the Black kid denying any connection to the White girl is priceless in its mockery of reality and these movies at the same time.

Perhaps the biggest clue to the potential success of this film is the fact that the whole family of Wayans are on board. Damien is directing. Keenan, Damien, Shawn and Marlon wrote it. Yes Marlon and Shawn are in the film. Thus fears of another Little Man exist. But this film also has Keenan, and sister Kim as actors. Add to that David Alan Grier and you have a solid cast of comedy standard bearers. If they appear in more than 1 or 2 scenes. Oh, it also has Chris Elliott in it, another mark against the film if he is in more than just 1 scene.

This will also be the first film for Damon Wayans Jr. Considering the ability of Damon the elder, and the tutelage of everyone in the family (except Marlon and Shawn) this should be a big break-out film. It may also be why the whole troupe is showing up (though Damon Sr. is not - but that may just be because he didn't want to give his son gitters). And Damien Wayans will have this film as his first motion picture debut (though his credits include work directing his uncle Damon Sr. on My Wife and Kids).

While the early trailer is not telling a lot about how good the film is, it is nice to see that the foremost (and likely largest) family of comedy movies has not ended their run. Every film backed by the Wayans clan may not be the best film ever, but then again no actor or Hollywood studio can make that claim either.

This should be a decent film. I hope it's a nice introduction of Damon Wayans Jr. and a success for Damien (it just needs to clear $30 million). But we have some time before it hits theaters, more trailers will arrive. And the opening weekend will say it all. At the very least, it's one of the most original ideas of the 2009 summer movie season.