The Jewison Re-Makes

As I mentioned in my last post, it seems like whenever a re-make is being considered people go to the films of Norman Jewison first. We've already had re-makes of The Thomas Crown Affair (original / re-make) and Rollerball (original / re-make), both of which were re-made by Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October director John McTiernan. And now, along with Jesus Christ Superstar, we are also going to get High Alert, which is a re-make of, or at least inspired by, The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming. I don't think McTiernan is directing either of them.

What is interesting about High Alert is that it's being co-written by Rick Mercer. I believe this is Mercer's first foray into film writing but he's very smart and very funny. I'm actually excited by this one.

Spider Webb

Apparently Marc Webb, director of 500 Days of Summer, has signed on to the latest Spider-Man project. This one is going to be reboot of the story, perhaps the way Christoper Nolan rebooted Batman. Neither Sam Rami nor Toby Maguire are attached, so now that there's a director on board in Webb the search is on for a lead. My guess, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I have nothing to base that on, but they have worked together before - to great result - and Gordon-Levitt has got the physical skills to do it, as we saw in G.I. Joe. Plus he's a great actor - way better than wooden Maguire. The only think going against him is he may be too old to play high-school, assuming that's what they're doing with this reboot. I have heard that Zac Effron is rumoured to be up for it but I think Gordon-Levitt is a better choice, although Effron was good in Me and Orson Welles.

In other semi-related news, Marc Webb is also apparently remaking Jesus Christ Superstar. I guess every film Norman Jewison ever made has to be re-made.

After the beep

Recently, while aimlessly flipping channels, I stumbled onto the movie Killshot. It was shot in and around the Toronto area and I know a couple of actors who had smaller roles in it so I thought I'd watch it for a bit. Okay, so basically there are two killers who are trying to, er...kill people. There's a scene where killer one, Mickey Rourke (the deadly but respectful one) and killer two, Joesph Gordon-Levitt (the young pyschotic one), have Diane Lane held captive while they wait for her husband to come home so they can kill them both. While they're waiting the phone rings and everyone freezes thinking it might be the husband but no one answers so it goes to the answering machine. But whoever is calling doesn't leave a message and the suspense continues.

I HATE this. Who has answering machines anymore? I know of one person, ONE, who still has an answering machine, everyone else has voicemail. But the other characters and the audience can't hear voicemail messages so, in movieland, everyone has answering machines. This is lazy writing. Unless you're writing a movie set in my mum's house think of something else. The answering machine is dead.