Newer News and Older Notes

 It looks like the inevitability of The Hangover Part III became a little more inevitable with the Box Office madness last weekend. While I tend to joke that box office numbers are directly proportional to the quality of the film, in this case I really can't even say that with a straight face. While The Hangover Part II is funny, which technically means it succeeds as a comedy, the sequel is one of the most flagrant examples I can think of recently of not straying too far from the original Or straying at all: the changes are all superficial, the character arcs are basically unchanged, and The Hangover Part II becomes strangely predictable even if you've only seen the first film once.

 Todd Phillips recently suggested that "if" they made a third film (Warner Brothers has subsequently hired Part II screenwriter Craig Mazin [Scary Movie 3 and 4] to start writing the next film) it would be the "finale" and would be "different" from the first two. Now it would be nice if that happened, and I don't doubt Phillips is sincere in his desire not to continue remaking The Hangover, I doubt Warner Brothers is very excited at the concept of a radical departure from the formula. Since audiences have demonstrated that they're willing to pay for tickets to a movie they've already seen, why risk scaring them away, or worse still, "ending" this emerging franchise?

But we all know the more pressing matter is what the Cap'n will do if I decide to see The Hangover Part III: Diminishing Returns - I can't repeat my repeat review. That's so passe, and besides, I must stress that it wasn't even my idea to begin with. I guess I have a year-and-a-half or so to figure that out, although if I'm going to watch a movie I've seen before, it probably isn't going to be The Hangover.

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However, if you're looking for a way to separate me from money I don't have, you could come up with worse ideas than Shout Factory's Mystery Science Theater 3000 volume XXI, also known as MST3k vs. Gamera. As Volume XX was a Joel-centric set, Volume XXI is also a "theme" set, this time collecting all of Joel and the Bots' encounter with the giant, fire breathing turtle (or whatever Gamera is supposed to be). They also happen to come from Season Three of MST3k, when the show was really hitting its stride, and benefit from the fact that all of the films had already been a part of the KTMA pre-series season, giving the writers a second go-round.

For some reason, it never occurred to me that when Shout Factory picked up the Gamera series for release, it dramatically increased the chances that exactly this boxed set should come to pass. Since there's almost no chance we'll see Godzilla vs. Megalon again, this may be the best gaijin Mistie you can expect for a while.

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Finally, I thought this tidbit might be interesting, and it allows the Cap'n to keep hoping: this week, Criterion's Facebook page posted a screen cap from Krzysztof Kieślowski's Red, hinting at a Blu Ray release of the "Three Colors" trilogy. What's significant about this? At first, it merely seems logical: Criterion has already released The Double Life of Veronique and fans hope that The Decalogue may find its way to "Spine Number" status down the line.

 That said, what I noticed immediately, because I still have the DVD boxed set of the Three Colors trilogy, is this impending announcement is significant for another reason. Red, Blue, and White were released on DVD by Miramax, who owned the rights and presumably sold them during the great "catalog dump" when the mini-major studio folded. Previously I had mentioned that as far as the press announcement indicated, the catalog was being split between Lionsgate and Echo Bridge (the former not being such a bad thing; the latter more so).

 At the end of the post I said that I hoped people would avoid Echo Bridge's mangling of From Dusk Till Dawn because a better studio might pick up the rights. I half-jokingly suggested Criterion pursue the film, not ever expecting it be reality. While it still remains hope on my part, the fact that the Criterion Collection is pursuing rights to previous Miramax titles (like the Three Colors trilogy) means that my pipe dream may not be so outlandish after all. Maybe we could see that Spine Number after all. Right after C.H.U.D.*.

* It was a great April Fool's Day joke, Criterion, but seriously get on that disc. Did you see the out-pour of fans supporting the idea of an actual C.H.U.D. release? I'd buy it today and I'm flat broke.