Hey, kids! Welcome back to the Book Report.

I want to talk about about a book that, when it was first published, took the literary world by storm but I couldn’t stand reading when I was forced to get through it in high school. Now that it has been updated and revised, however, it’s an absolute joy to get through.
The book I’m talking about is Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen.

First published in 1813, the book was an immediate success. Jane Austen called the work “her own darling child” and spoke of its protagonist, Elizabeth Bennett, “as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print.” History has, more or less, agreed with her. In 2003, the BBC conducted one of its largest surveys to determine “The UK’s Best Loved Book”, and it placed second behind The Lord of the Rings.
(Side note: Have you noticed how The Lord of the Rings consistently gets a mention in these Book Reports? It’s because it really is that good of a book, and you should go read it if you haven’t yet)
As a love story it works fine, but I am inclined to agree with Charlotte Bronte when she calls the novel “…a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses…Miss Austen is only shrewd and observant.” (written Jan 12, 1848 to Fraser’s magazine, in response to their review of Austen’s book)
It is a good criticism. Jane Austen wrote clever characters doing clever things in clever situations, and surrounded those clever people with idiots so they might appear more clever. The trouble is that just because it is clever doesn’t automatically make it any good. Even the main conflict of the story, the squaring off of Darcy’s pride and prejudice against Elizabeth’s (get it?), is more a battle of wits than anything and doesn’t go any deeper than simple miscommunication.
What this story really needs is a conflict of apocalyptic proportions.

In 2009, Jane Austen’s novel got a much needed face-lift (so to speak), when Seth Grahame-Smith updated her “classic Regency romance” to include “Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem” with the newly revised Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. And so the story got the conflict of apocalyptic proportions it so desperately required.
The story essentially remains unchanged (in fact, Mrs. Bennett remains almost completely unchanged), the only difference now is that when the story is about to get unbearably boring, a zombie attack (called “unmentionables” in the story) comes around to liven things up.

One thing I really appreciated about the book is that it helps clarify the satire in Austen’s original text. Hiding just beneath the love story is subtle humor poking fun at the superficial lives of the landed gentry. The trouble is, it can be difficult to tell exactly how superficial they really are when the main conflicts of the story scratch barely beneath surface-level problems. Watching the rich, land-owning elite of the early 19th century resolutely hang onto their “manners” in the face of global apocalypse in the updated version brings out the satire to the point of hilarity.
It doesn’t hurt that the book has kung-fu in it now, too.

For those who prefer their literature in video format, there’s good news for you, too. Richard Kelly (the writer and director of Donnie Darko) and Natalie Portman (do I really need to list any credits?) are set to produce the film version of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies with Portman to star as the historically popular heroine. The project is still under development, but I expect you’ll hear more from Sgt. Angle as things progress on this front.

That’s all for this week!

Still paddlin’ the old knew…
_-Akatzen-_

Salutations!

James Ninness here.  WonderCon is just a couple days away and Semantink is packing our bags for San Francisco!  Once there, we’ll be giving away some very pretty cards for all WonderCon attendees that give them not only the link to the MYTHOI Birth Series (which has, and always will be, free), but as a special treat, a secret link to a site where they can see issue #1 of MYTHOI proper — absolutely free!  To get the ball rolling, Semantink will be giving you a sneak peak at the character cards they’ve put together each day with a look into the characters themselves, written by your’s truly.  Today were going to take a look at our only femme fatale (fanboys everywhere sigh): Yuki!

The Yurei are Japanese ghosts and a combination of two kanji (words), “yu” meaning “dim” and “rei” meaning “spirit.”  Typically the yurei are souls that have been trapped or bound to Earth by some intensely violent death or inability to move on peacefully.  If you’ve seen The Ring, Dark Water, The Grudge or One Missed Call then you know what I’m talking about.  Though modern cinema is cashing in on the “Asian Ghost” phenomenon, it’s been around for a very, very long time.  Obakebanashi, or “ghost stories,” have been an integral part of the Asian continents history for as long as words have been spoken.  Yuki, the spirit of MYTHOI is an homage to this ancient vein of storytelling.

Yuki’s tale is one of revenge, sweet and simple.  A while back something happened to Yuki (which you can read for FREE right here) that’s given her a serious case of existential hiccups.  So now she’s scouring the world looking for the elemental dragons — a series of four beasts that represent fire, earth, wind and water.  Upon the defeat of these beasts, Yuki will be equipped to defeat the bane of her extended existence: Master Sho.  Now as a direct result of her death (and life before her death), Yuki is not a team player.  She’s bitter, angry, focused and selfish, facets that don’t jive well with the rest of the team (save Vito).  However, she’s also a hot, badass that can posses her enemies and wreak havoc on (almost) anyone she chooses.  So what Yuki lacks in friendliness, she more than abundantly makes up for in the ability to f*ck people up — making her invaluable to the team; if only she would admit to being a part of it…

Enjoy your Wednesday everyone.  Thanks for stopping by.

James Ninness

Sgt. Angle Reporting for Duty!

Before today’s briefing, be sure you check out Semantink’s countdown to Wondercon here. This information is by no means top secret, so be sure to recruit some new readers on the double.

And now this:

Last week, the cinematic world was stricken with laughter by screenwriter J.D. Shapiro’s apology for the worst movie of the decade (Battlefield Earth). Is this the first time a writer/creator has apologized for putting pen to paper? Probably not, but I digress.

Also this past week, the trailer for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World premiered, and it’s quite a doozy. Such a doozy, in fact, that it fits right in time with today’s Film Creator Spotlight on the co-writer and director of the comic adaptation, EDGAR WRIGHT.

How must one begin? To start with, you can get your own brief summary here, suffice it to say that Wright has been making home movies since he was a child in Somerset and/or Dorset, England (isn’t that how it always starts?). Just before he met his collaborators for most of the next decade, Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes nee Stevenson, Wright directed an indie feature spoofing Spaghetti Westerns called A Fistful of Fingers.

Wright then went on to direct a couple of British TV series, including “Asylum” which co-starred and was co-written by Jessica Hynes nee Stevenson and Simon Pegg. Pegg and Hynes would then become the creative force behind “Spaced,” the television series which launched Edgar onto the international stage, and solidified his style as well as his contribution to the genre. Wright uses quick cuts, wiping edits, and cinematic techniques that are still fresh to television comedies. His shows and films contain multiple homages to movies past and present, so much so that he often includes an “homage-o-meter” track to his DVD releases.

“Spaced” revolved around two twentysomethings in England struggling to pay rent, find work and love, and resist growing out of their childish ways. Pegg plays an artist just dumped by his girlfriend, works in a comic-book store and who has an extensive love of obscure films, paintball, and nights out drinking. Hynes plays a freelance writer moving out of a squatters’ flat. They find each other and move in together, in a building with a drunk landlady and an eccentric artist. And here’s where Nick Frost enters, playing Pegg’s best friend Mike who was kicked out of the territorial army and is essentially a cuddly die-hard soldier.

The series often involves slick references to pop culture and overly profound discussions of events (Star Wars plays a rather large role in many an episode) that usually stemmed from, or led to, drug or drink induced sleep or laughter. The show also references, either in words or style, everything from Robocop to Pulp Fiction, Dawn of the Dead to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. (*if you get the chance and money to purchase the entire series on DVD, there are two commentary tracks, one from years ago with Wright, Pegg, Hynes and Frost, and a new track with contributions from Kevin Smith, Quentin Tarantino, Patton Oswalt and Diablo Cody).

After the success of “Spaced,” Wright and Pegg co-wrote Shaun of the Dead, their rom-com meets zombies film, paying homage to Romero and Raimi while capturing that sense of loss in twentysomethings that the team has become known for. Dead reached $30 million worldwide, and did fairly well on DVD. It furthered Wright’s reliance on editing to induce laughs as well as scares, and catapulted him into the friend circle of Tarantino, Kevin Smith, and Eli Roth, thus allowing Wright to contribute to Grindhouse with the faux trailer to Don’t.

Next came Hot Fuzz (a personal favorite of mine) wherein, once again, Pegg and Wright wrote the script, and Nick Frost played the reliable best friend to real life best friend Simon Pegg. This time around, Wright tackled the buddy cop and action movie genre, referencing over 120 films, and reading Roger Ebert’s book of Hollywood cliches, to be sure to hit all the familiar cliches.

Wright’s love of all genres of music and his respect for the history of filmmaking bring a lively, personal touch to his films’ music and scene structure. His website features, among the obligatory self and movie news, a daily photo update from the set of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, introducing cast and crew members and revealing a little at a time of the set and the world of the story.

SPVTW trailer (linked at the top) debuted to a fury of love last week, and is now something more to look forward to this year after April’s release of Kick-Ass. Michael Cera plays Scott Pilgrim, a young guy who falls for the girl of his dreams, and must fight her seven evil ex-boyfriends in order to be able to date her. (For more on the Scott Pilgrim adaptation, read this article at Chud.) This movie also indicates Wright’s shift away from constant collaboration with Simon Pegg after a decade, so it’ll be interesting to see if the style remains strictly in the footage, or if Wright’s scripting abilities are the constant more than anything else.

Following that, Wright has been rumored to be covering the Ant-Man adaptation, as well as The World’s End, the final film in the ‘Blood and Ice Cream trilogy’ started with Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. This time around, the team will cover disaster movies.

Edgar Wright has been the director to watch over the last decade, and one can only assume a positive direction for his career after Scott Pilgrim, arguably his highest-profile project yet. By the end of the year, he should become more than a niche attraction at the movies, much the same way Tarantino exploded after Pulp Fiction.

I had the pleasure of attending two “Edgar Wright related events” in Los Angeles, one was a fun Q & A for the Hot Fuzz sneak peak, and the other was a double-feature at the New Beverly Cinema during his “The Wright Stuff” festival (occasionally, the New Beverly will allow guest filmmakers to curate two weeks of films, hopefully bringing in special guests). The night I attended, he screened An American Werewolf in London. John Landis was there for a Q & A, and in the audience were Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino, who at one point stopped in the middle of the aisle after grabbing some popcorn to watch a particularly fun scene in the film.

Edgar Wright certainly knows the right movies and scenes that trigger a moviegoers sense of enjoyment. As a director, he certainly does have the Wright Stuff (awkward pun hit!).

If you enjoy comedy, watch an Edgar Wright movie. If you enjoy feel good film and/or television, watch an Edgar Wright production.

Oh, and here’s a Pizza Hut commercial he directed during a brief brush with commercialism.

You are now dismissed!

Sgt. Angle

Well hello again…

James Ninness here.  WonderCon is just a few days away and Semantink is packing our bags for San Francisco!  Once there, we’ll be giving away some very pretty cards for all WonderCon attendees that give them not only the link to the MYTHOI Birth Series (which has, and always will be, free), but as a special treat, a secret link to a site where they can see issue #1 of MYTHOI proper — absolutely free!  To get the ball rolling, Semantink will be giving you a sneak peak at the character cards they’ve put together each day with a look into the characters themselves, written by yours truly.  Next on the list is the youngest, both in looks and in age, Vito!

Pre–Twilight, vampires were some of the scariest, sexiest mo-fo’s around.  Of all the blood-sucker stories I’ve read, my favorite series is Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles — all of them.  I saw the Interview with a Vampire in theaters when I was 12 and I loved it.  Seven years later, while on a trip with some friends in Europe, I picked up the books and got through them all (I read Blackwood Farm when it came out, but haven’t gotten to Blood Canticle) within a few weeks.  I think it’s fair to say that Anne Rice (whether she’d like it or not) is responsible for my infatuation with vampires.  I realize that the mythology goes much, much deeper and I have read Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla and several other stories, but to me Lestat will always be my favorite.

Having said that, Vito is not Lestat.  Vito is a child through and through.  Turned as a child and without anyone to raise him, MYTHOI’s Vito is a naive boy looking for adventure in America, “the land of opportunity.”  Having lived the last few hundred years on Westerns and cowboy books, Vito is looking to make a name for himself in the West.  He isn’t ashamed of being a vampire, nor has he fallen into the cliche-traps in which most modern vampires suffer.  He’s a 100 year-old boy — it just so happens he’s a vampire.  As the mythology of Vito is concerned, Vito is ripped from (parts of) Stoker’s piece.  I would tell you how, but it would ruin the fun of reading this (for FREE)!  Unlike the rest of the characters  in MYTHOI, Vito isn’t looking for anyone, or anything in particular.  He’s along for the ride, and enjoying the adventure.  His journey is not external, but internal.  He’s spent the last 100+ years alone and now he’s caught up with four new “friends” in the last great adventure on Earth.  Yeehaw.

Thanks again for checking out MYTHOI.  See you this weekend?

James Ninness

Greetings all!

James Ninness here.  WonderCon is just a few days away and Semantink is packing our bags for San Francisco!  Once there, we’ll be giving away some very pretty cards for all WonderCon attendees that give them not only the link to the MYTHOI Birth Series (which has, and always will be, free), but as a special treat, a secret link to a site where they can see issue #1 of MYTHOI proper — absolutely free!  To get the ball rolling, Semantink will be giving you a sneak peak at the character cards they’ve put together each day with a look into the characters themselves, written by your’s truly.  To kick things off we’re gonna get started with the oldest of the group: Wiglaf!

Wiglaf was actually the last character to join the MYTHOI crew.  In the first rendition of the story, Taros, Vito, Yuki and Touch were joined by a pair of Aztec lovers who turned to stone, one during the day and one at night — very Ladyhawke.  Honestly, i pussed out and got rid of them because it was a pain in the ass moving whoever-the-stone-character-happened-to-be around.  Enter: Wiglaf.  I stole Wiglaf from a much more dramatic piece of fiction called, Beowulf — the poem, not the movie.  In that tale Wiglaf was a cousin of Beowulf and the only living relative when Beowulf died.  He was also the only person who remained at Beowulf’s side when he faced the Dragon that attacked the Geat-Land.  In our story, Beowulf is a bit different…

I’m not going to tell you what happened, you have to read that for yourself (FREE), here.  Suffice to say that Wiglaf’s journey is a road to redemption.  In the course of MYTHOI, we will see Wiglaf hunt his children across the globe, each of whom represents (or has represented) “death” to various cultures in history.  God may never forgive Wiglaf for what he’s done, and Wiglaf knows that, but it won’t stop him from trying.

Thanks for stopping by guys.  Hopefully I’ll see you at WonderCon!

James Ninness

Greetings all,

I was cruising around the information super highway, looking for inspiration for today’s list, when I came across this:

A screen shot from the upcoming THE GOON movie! Huzzah!  This awesome picture of The Goon and his sidekick, Frankie got me thinking about the greatest sidekicks of all time. So, today I present to you my list of the ten greatest comic book sidekicks of all time (in no particular order):

1) FRANKIE: The guy who started the list gets the first spot. Despite his small size, Frankie is famous for his “knife to the Eye” attack. This attack is usually used in tandem with the greatest catchphrase in all of comics: “Knife to the Eye!”

2) ROBIN: No matter who is Robin (there has been four of them, I believe), Batman’s sidekick gets to be on the list for sheer sake of longevity. 70 years of speedos and domino masks earns anyone a spot on this list.

3) ARTHUR: If you were tired of your life as a boring old CPA, what would you do? Go back to school? Buy a new car and have a nifty midlife crisis? Well, Arthur had the best idea ever, he found a moth costume and became the sidekick for The Tick. SPOON!

4) BUCKY: Bucky is the man. He sacrifices himself to save Captain America, and then comes back to life 60 years later, as a cyborg no less, and becomes Captain America. Top that super-assistants! (Yes, I know there was more than one Bucky, but only the first one really counts, the rest were posers.)

5) THE GOAT: Neither Quantum nor Woody were good superheroes, but their sidekick was awesome. That’s right, it’s THE GOAT! With all the powers of… A GOAT! This just goes to show, if you don’t have the cache to get a real sidekick, dress up an animal.

6) OBERON: Striking a blow for little people everywhere! Every character from Giffen and DeMatteis’ JLI run was great, but Oberon stood head and shoulders (not literally of course) above them all. The dude was a valet for gods, and went to bed with Fire (who is hot, pun intended). Way to go little guy!

7) CASSIDY: Every time Cassidy graced the pages of PREACHER, you knew something crazy was going to happen. The man is a drug-addicted Irish Vampire, how could shenanigans not be afoot when he enters?

RICK JONES: The ultimate utility sidekick. This man has been an assistant to Captain America, Captain Marvel (the first and the third), The Hulk, and even the Supreme Intelligence (well, kinda). This guy is the village doorknob of sidekicks, everyone gets a turn.

9) KID MIRACLEMAN (Young Marvelman): What separates Kid Miracleman from the dozens of other sidekicks out there? What makes him better than Toro, or Superboy, or Wondergirl? Well, he went crazy and killed the whole city of London. Top that Aqualad!

10) MIDNIGHT: If you have never heard of Midnight, you are probably wondering why he is on this list. If you HAVE heard of Midnight, you are definitely wondering how he made this list. Well, Moon Knight’s sidekick sucks. He sucked as an actual sidekick (he died), he sucked when he was brought back to life as an evil cyborg (he whined a lot), and he sucks just as much now as a crazy rusted cyborg (still whiny.) I felt the guy needs something good to happen to him. Pity vote right here.

Thanks all for stopping in, check back here tomorrow for the latest from THE UNDERGROUNDS! And if you are going to be in SF this weekend for Wondercon, keep an eye out for the Semantink crew as we will be repping up there all weekend!

Nothing would make me happier in life than if people suddenly burst into song to share their emotions with the world. For the most part, that doesn’t happen. Sometimes we are lucky enough to witness such a moment. Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, I present to you “Random Acts of Dace: Part One”.

3) Our first random act of dance today come all the way from Belgium where more than 200 dancers perform their rendition of Do Re Mi from the Sound of Music. This took time and energy that does not go unnoticed.

2) Our second random act of dance you may have seen before. This video got very popular very quickly and if you haven’t seen it that’s okay…because that’s why I’m here…to open your eyes to “The Food Court Musical”

1) And our last video of the day come to us from Queens New York. This video is my number one pick for the day for two reasons. Reason 1: Look how happy everybody gets in this video? You can’t help but smile when you see the reactions of the people watching. Reason 2: Its called “The Grocery Store Musical”

Well that’s all for now but be looking out for Part Two in the next couple of weeks. Would love to know, what video you think is the best musical?

- Admiral Eo

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you didn’t sleep? According to WebMD, the side-effects can be: “decreased performance and alertness, memory and cognitive impairment, stress in relationships, poor quality of life [you feel detached and outside the rest of the world], occupational injury, automobile injury.” Clinically, WebMD attributes this list of wonderfully dire side effects that could emanate from too long away from slumberland: “high blood pressure, heart attack, heart failure, stroke, obesity, psychiatric problems including depression and other mood orders, ADD, mental impairment, fetal and childhood growth retardation, injury from accidents, disruption of bed partner’s sleep quality, and [again] poor quality of life.” But is this really true? How far have people gone in pushing the limits of sleep and sleep deprivation? Let us explore.

It turns out that there are a couple of people that have gone for the world record of sleeplessness. The person that occurs the most on google searches is a San-Diego based teenager (at the time) from 1964 by the name of Randy Gardner. He went eleven days without sleep. But, if you look at the English news, the man of many sleepless nights is Tony Wright. Both of these cases underwent very stringent recording processes in an attempt to prove that the person was awake for that entire duration. This seems to be the biggest issue; is the person really awake the whole time. In particular, Tony Wright says some pretty nutty things when it comes to describing how his process of avoiding the sandman took place. A BBC article paraphrases him describing his technique: “He argues that parts of the human brain require a different amount of sleep and it is possible to stay awake and remain functional for long periods.” It is quite possible that he is on to something in that process. The brain may be able to switch to different sides in order to carry out different processes without disturbing other areas of the brain which can then “rest.” There is a fantastic article here from 60 minutes that is really long, but it carries with it a lot of what modern science believes about sleep. Ultimately, the bottom line is that modern science believes that sleep is essential. So let’s go wreck that belief.

There appear to be a couple of encounters throughout history in which people tend to get tremendous amounts of work done by somehow avoiding sleep all together or minimizing it to really, ridiculously low levels. The first case that I was able to trudge up comes from none other than Roger Ebert’s journal. Apparently, when Ebert was out touring the French countryside, he ran across a man whom he discovered did not need to sleep. He was a machinist (and clockmaker and god knows what else), and he considered sleep to be a secondary death that was performed daily. He writes about his experience (or someone republishes it for him) in this link right here. Though he denied sleeping “not a wink,” his daughter has an addition that is attached to the story that describes his sleeping habits as spastic and at most lasting fifteen minutes perhaps twice a day. Still, half an hour of sleep a day is quite an extraordinary feat if this story is true.

Another story that comes up is from a Vietnamese man named Thai Ngoc, who has apprently not slept for 33 years. He had a fever at one point and now, he does not sleep at all. He claims that he is still healthy (after all he is now 64) and he is still able to heft two 50 kg. bags down 4 kilometers of road (!?) If this is true, this is quite possibly the most bad-ass farmer dude that ever walked around. The unfortunate part is that the man seems to really resent the fact that he can not get even the slightest bit of sleep. He is a poor farmer, so I can’t really imagine that he has an X-Box to keep him busy at night, or anything of the ilk. But the case is interesting in that a fever appears to be the cause of his lack of sleep. Now, I am stretching quite a bit here, but is it possible that some microbe when correctly combined with human DNA awakens the ability in a person to overcome sleep? If so, would it be worth harvesting? Incorporating? Could you all use several extra hour’s productivity? Or would work forces then just make the word day 16 hours long? Questions for contemplation, I suppose.

Leonardo DiVinci is a person that apprently slept a total of two hours a night. He was alleged to take fifteen to twenty minute cat naps (or power naps to some) every four hours he was awake or so. Also in that line of sleep patterns are Thomas Edison, Thomas Jefferson, and Nikola Tesla. Now, these are commonly accepted work-a-holics, and the doubt that I can cast on their credibility lies solely in the fact that this information comes from journals that benefit with the promotion of a tireless American work-ethic. Other than that, they may in deed be very true. The missing detail in these men is how they were able to achieve this effect. The Vietnamese guy at least underwent a fever that seems to have transformed him. Were the above men effected by the same virus? Did they share the symptoms of the same disease? They were both reputed to follow a similar sleep regiment. Some ancient Kung-Fu and modern Tai’Chi practiconers were said to be able to get away with as little as two two-hour naps during the evening and early morning. It is also possible that they were able to achieve a sleep like state without administering any outward sign which scientists call “microsleeping.” In other words, it is possible that while you were blathering to them about something important, they were dozing and dreaming in a very short space. So what is the verdict? Why is it that some people need to get sleep or else suffer dire consequences and some people crave sleep but do not need it at all? From the information I am picking up, it seems that it is a combination of genetics and biology. There does seem to be some group of people that try different sleep schedules to boost certain performances. But ultimately, I still feel that the amount of sleep we need is specific to an individual.

1996 was a generally fantastic year for me.  I won a staring competition against a yeti, I bedded three (surprising agile) blond midgets and made them call me “Mad Martigroin,” which they loved, and I skinned the Loch Ness Monster with my teeth.  It was almost a perfect year.  But something happened in 1996 that would grow to become a splinter in the mind of my eternal joy: Scream.  This guy, Kevin Williamson, wrote a script called Scary Movie (later changed to Scream), that was picked up and directed by the master of horror himself, Wes Craven.  Scream itself wasn’t a big problem, but the sequels that followed, well, they twist my balls something uncomfortable, but not in a good way.  I thought the pain was over in 2000, after Scream 3 flopped it’s way to the general public, so if you can, try to imagine my agony when I read that Scream 4 is making a “cinematic” appearance on April 15, 2011, with all the key players involved.

The first Scream movie didn’t bother me… too much.  I thought the gimmicky analysis of horror movies running simultaneous to a film in which plot devices are explained and then flipped, directed by a man whose career was made on said devices, was fun and, at the time, original.  Having said that, it wasn’t great.  It was fun, but not great.  The cast was solid(ish).  I had no grand problems with Ms. Campbell, or Jamie Kennedy, but in my not-so-humble opinion the film owed it’s success to the performances of the villains: Skeet Ulrich and Matthew Lillard, the latter of which, stole every scene he was in.  Well, almost.  The only greater scene-stealing was done by Rose McGowan’s enormous breasts that have sugar coated the dreams of many men ever since.

Scream made $103,046,663 domestically.

Even the quasi-message, that the media has not only a direct role in the mixed messages it sends to youth, but a responsibility to the youth as well, was fine.  Or maybe the message was that mom’s of crazy kids who look like Gavin Rossdale shouldn’t whore about with married men.  Or maybe that married men shouldn’t whore about with the mothers of crazy Gavin Rossdale look-a-likes.  Well, whatever it was, I know it had to do with Gavin Rossdale, but I digress…  The movie was a fun, one-trick-pony that made a ton of money.  Like most films that fall into that category, the studio wanted more and began kicking the shit out of the proverbial dead horse.

Enter Scream 2.  This steamy piece of shit came out but one year after the first (1997, in case you don’t do math) and followed our heroine, Sidney Presscott, as she dealt with the trauma of the first films events while trying to balance school and a new relationship with the cockroach lover from Joe’s Apartment.  Well, as you can imagine, shit gets a bit wacky and once again, the rules of horror are spewed to the audience, but here’s the thing (sarcasm incoming), it’s the rules of surviving a sequel!  Great, huh (end sarcasm)? Somehow these characters figured out that they do exist in a series of films and helped us, the audience, understand what to expect only so they could twist shit on us.  I have to give them credit though, at least they recognized it was a series and not a single, Lord of the Rings–sized, epic.  Kudos for knowing your role.  Predictably things don’t go well for Sidney and the film dissolves into a mediocre whodunnit with an amazing lack of care.  To be fair, it’s rumored that the end of the script was leaked and Craven changed the ending in an effort to be surprising.  So what did we get?  The aunt from Roseanna was the killer.  Really?  Lame.  She was the mother/whore of the first film’s villain and had apparently been knocked off her rocker by her son’s death, deciding to kill Sydney and going undercover as a reporter.  Why didn’t Sidney know who she was?  Where was she during the events of the first film?  How did she even get a role in a major motion picture?  These are questions answered arbitrarily and with great abandon because ultimately, they don’t matter.  This wasn’t a film, it was a quick buck for Dimension Films, but in case you missed the message: The media is desensitizing the youth and we’re all in for some real shit!  And something about Gavin Rossdale’s mom…

Scream 2 made $101,363,301 domestically, so guess what?  3 was coming…

In Scream 3, Sidney Presscott lives in seclusion, but is forced to rejoin Rachel from Friends and her retarded, gimpy boyfriend, when the man who was acquitted of Sidney’s mother’s murder is killed and the cast Stab, the movies made after the events of Sidney’s — you know what?  No.  Some shit happens and the “Ghostface” killer returns.  Done. That’s all you need to know.  Sidney’s half-brother did it.  When did she get a half-brother?  I dunno.  I don’t think anybody really does.  But at some point his mother fooled around with Sidney’s dad and thus ended her dreams of stardom.  But not to worry mom, your son, whom you disavowed, is a big time producer/director with everything he could ever want.  Problem though: he’s a douche and apparently he started this whole mess with Rossdale in Scream, Roseanne-aunt in Scream 2 and now he thought he’d give it a stab (see what I did there?).  Same message as before: Gavin Rossdale will kill you if you mess with his mom in the media!  Booyah!

What a fuckin’ mess.  Scream 3 made $89,138,076 domestically, which wasn’t terrible, but the film cost half that to make, as opposed to the first (15 mil) and the second (20 mil).  So it seemed, until now, that we were done with the Scream series.  I mean, how many other relatives could Gavin have, right?

Now, however, it seems as though the Scream franchise has decided to rise from the grave of mediocrity once more in attempt to cash in on the recent resurgence of remakes, reboots and series rehashings.  Apparently the series will have Cox, Campbell and Arquette leading a younger group through the various plot entanglements and gimmicky climax-devices, which makes sense since Cox is old enough to be a grandma and Campbell isn’t even acting anymore (is she?).  I think the hope is that a younger group can reboot the franchise.  Swell.  Maybe, if we’re real lucky, the three Scream alums will pull a Barrymore and get offed in the opening credits!  Then it’ll be like everything they did in the first 2.5 movies was for not!  I know that would be depressing as far as the story is concerned, but who cares about story when there’s money to be made, right?

Until next time,

Mr. Wolff

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