For those who complain that too many of today’s movies are rather “same-y” and don’t have enough imagination, I just stumbled across these trailers.
Nicolas Cage stars in a remake of “The Wicker Man,” based on a relatively-unknown British film of the early 1970s. Sadly, I already know how this movie ends even though I never saw the 1975 original. There was a 2004 Halloween countdown of the 100 scariest moments in the movies on cable (was it Bravo?), and the Wicker Man’s ending was one of them. Unfortunate that for many of the movies, they spoiled so many of the films that the viewer may not have seen by giving away the finale. Their description of the Wicker Man made me want to check it out, but then they ruin it for me.
The film is about a policeman who is tracking down a missing girl and must investigate a closed community. The original film has a pagan cult living on an island in England Scotland; the “fish out of water” movie follows the establishment Christian as he confronts the pagan hippies. Whether this new film contains any of those dynamics, given the changing times, it is too soon to tell. (Yes, Sean Connery, I know that Scotland isn’t England exactly. I was imprecise.)
Richard Linklater’s “A Scanner Darkly“, based on a work by Philip K. Dick (whose writings spawned “Blade Runner” and “Paycheck”), features Keanu Reeves, Woody Harrelson and Winona Ryder. I know, that sounds like the guest list for Christopher Walken’s Psychic Friends, but check this out: it’s animated. Not animated like “The Incredibles”, but with that new weird computer-enhanced rotoscoping method that I’ve seen on some recent financial commercials. I have no clue wha tthe movie is about, aside from that it’s five years in the future and concerns the paranoia of being constantly monitored, but it’s WEIRD. You’ve got to give it that.
“The original film has a pagan cult living on an island in England” WHAHHT!
Dude……The film (One of the true classics of British horror BTW) is set in the Hebrides of SCOTLAND, hence the accents and other scottish trappings, I understand that you’ve not seen the original (Which did NOT need to be remade, Thanks..) but a little Google/Wiki action stops people saying silly things, lol!
And what’s with Christopher Lee’s part being played by Ellen Burstyn, Come on!!
Sorry for the rant, i’m only a Scot who’s just not sure why you wacky Yanks always feel the need to fix what ain’t broke…
Just out of curiosity, when you say that Scotland isn’t England exactly, do you mean it in the same way that one might say that California isn’t Florida exactly?
Scotland was an independent kingdom for hundreds of years. It has much more of a distinctive regional identity within the United Kingdom than any state (except MAYBE Texas) does within the U.S.
So the new Philip K. Dick adaptation is set in the near future and is about paranoia. Imagine that–a Philip K. Dick work that involves paranoia!