Moviegoings

First, some brilliant news! If you are unaware of a television show called Mystery Science Theater 3000 that ran for 11 years (1988-1999), then you have suffered a grave depravation. Go find some back-episodes somewhere. The premise was fairly simple: a couple of mad scientists have imprisoned an average guy on a satellite orbiting Earth, where they conduct experiments on him each week which consist of showing him a really awful movie and observing his reactions. In an effort to preserve his sanity, the guy has constructed some robot buddies, and together they sit and relentlessly mock whatever movie is playing that week.

Well, after eight years, the guys are apparently back. Mike Nelson (who played the main character for half of MST3K’s run), Bill Corbett (voice of Crow T. Robot) and Kevin Murphy (voice of Tom Servo) are reborn as “The Film Crew.” They will be releasing some of the awful movie fare of yore on DVD with (presumably hilarious) commentary tracks. Their opening selections include: Giant of Marathon (1959), Hollywood After Dark (1968) Killers from Space (1954), and The Wild Women of Wongo (1958).

In other news, Jeffrey Overstreet reports further disturbing developments regarding the upcoming release of Prince Caspian. Andrew Adamson now informs us that there will be “battles all the way through,” in case you were worried about too much boring dialogue or character development. This does not bode well, especially in connection with the information Peter Chattaway came across in early May.

Caspian may be by far my least favorite of the Narnia books, but that doesn’t mean I want to see it “improved on” by people who think they know better than the millions who have enjoyed Lewis’s stories in their current form for the past several decades. Still, I’d at least like to think that the next three chronicles (my favorites) are already in a more movie-friendly form and will not require quite so much “adapting.”

Finally, Just An Amateur reminds me of a new (2008) CG adaptation of a book by Roald Dahl (possibly my favorite children’s author): Fantastic Mr. Fox. George Clooney and Cate Blanchett will voice Mr. and Mrs. Fox, and Wes Anderson will direct. Yes, that’s the Wes Anderson who was behind quirky stuff like The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. Somehow I never pegged him for something like this, but I love his stuff so we’ll see what he does with it.

~ by Jared on June 29, 2007.

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