We Must Be Doing Something Right

It's a nice feeling when you realize people not only listen to your ideas, but WANT them. It makes you feel like you should be writing. Well, at a dinner the other night, I brought up the possibility of pitching another idea on a project that is ongoing, and the executive said, "I'd love to hear it." They did. And they loved it! Now, we have to actually come up with a pitch to show everyone. It will be fleshed out, more fun, more exciting and, hopefully, purchased.

Other than that, we are just waiting to hear on some things.

Oh, people, if you even think of remotely listening to my ramblings, please listen to this and believe me when I say: Do NOT see THE RING TWO. As a matter of fact, hang up your phone and run out to see CURSED. Twice.

I'm not even kidding.

I cannot even begin to describe this senseless, totally watered down, not scary, mess of a film. It takes the events of the first film (which I didn't love, but can appreciate and it did have some scary moments) and does try to do something with the material. But fails. Okay, SPOILERS AHEAD, so stop reading now...

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We do learn more about Samara and her past. We learn that her mother (the ALWAYS amazing and wonderful Sissy Spacek in a perfect-for-her creepy performance) is still alive and tried to drown Samara because "my baby (Samara) told me to." Okay...so what?

The biggest problem is the disconnect to the real world (yes it is a horror movie, but please at least ground the notions in the real world so we can relate and be afraid) and the fact that Samara is seen so much in this movie she is just not scary. She looks like a too-long-in-the-bathtub-girl-who-needs-a-haircut. Stat! When we do see her, I wanted to scream at Naomi Watts to just pull the b*tch out of the television and kick her a**! Come on, if she just scares people to death, its pretty clear Naomi Watts is NOT afraid of her (and can we not go into the well at the end of the film...again?).

I was also not enamored with the director's choices. I'd be interested to see RINGU 2 to see what he did with that films direction, since I felt the American sequel looked and felt flat.

Enough said, except I was surprised the script was so underwhelming. Ehren Krueger (no relation to Freddy) wrote it and I wonder if it is a case with studio tampering (the story was a total departure from its Japanese counterpart), since he wrote the interesting and effectively creepy (albeit plausibility-straining) ARLINGTON ROAD. He also penned SCREAM 3 (not the best in the series, but it was at least fine and had Parker Posey. Yes, you love her THAT much!). I don't love his writing or his ideas, but I thought this movie was terrible for him.

Oh, I saw a few previews of films worth mentioning:

THE AMITYVILLE HORROR remake: the original is great, but this redux supposedly follows the book much more closely. The book was scary as all hell, so this could be good.

RED EYE: Not much based on the preview, but it's a thriller set on a plane and directed by main man Wes Craven. I will, of course, see this because it is his movie.

DARK WATER: I think this looks interesting and I like Jennifer Connelly. A friend of mine already saw it and said it was worse than The Ring Two. I can't believe it, so chime in if you have any insider info.

STAR WARS EPISODE 3: Not a horror movie, but the first two prequels were so bad it was scary. This movie looks to be a keeper. I'll be seeing it, for sure.

Oh, and if you are not watching PROJECT GREENLIGHT, start! It is that good. The usual suspects (Matt, Ben, Chris, and this time the Dimension folks) are all great, providing insight, humor, and reality into the business of making a horror movie (it ain't always pretty, kids!). Of course, Wes is in it, so that gives it an A+ in my book. So let's look at the winners: a train wreck of a director and a writing team where one guy talks too much (and shouldn't talk at all) and one guy barely talks (and when he does it's like, "you're the smart one so keep talking"). This is going to be a very interesting season and the movie (the script I read was TERRIBLE beyond all comprehension) should be an interesting experiment. I'll give weekly updates since I am so intrigued, but we can start with:

--The director can barely eke out a sentence, much less command a film crew. And he wants to cast his family in the movie. Some were good, some were not. But he and the casting director/producers are clearly at odds over the "it must be my family" ultimatum.

--The writers, after starting with saying things like, "this was the hard part and now it is smooth sailing" had their rude awakening when Dimension basically told them, "you're script is a mess and needs serious work and we don't care if it is you or other writers we bring in." DING! Clue phone and it's for them.

All right (ahhh), that's it for today. If I think of anything new I'll mention it. For now, some advice I wouldn't want to follow...

--If you look in the mirror and say his name 5 times he'll appear behind you breathing down your neck.
CANDYMAN