Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by brewthunda (A) on November 01, 2002 at 08:37:46

In Reply to: Poor Victor - More torture! posted by Harmonia on November 01, 2002 at 00:10:16:

Good ones.

Although I really like the Hidden, Space Balls and Rollerball.

Speaking of Rollerball, I just rented the remake. (Yeah, yeah, I know. But I'm on the 8-DVD Netflix plan, so I have to keep my queue filled with movies and I've made a conscious decision to not feel guilty about renting crap - since crappy movies are no worse than what's on TV and I can always turn it off.) Anyways, yeah, so I rented the remake . . and I knew it would be bad, but I had no idea that a movie could actually be THIS bad.

I'm a big fan of the original . . especially of the stunning 70's architecture of the buildings and the sparse, simplified vision of the future. It was a violent action flick . . but done with a lot of style and it presented a perfectly packaged futuristic fantasy.

I still can't figure out why they made this remake. My theory is that the discussion went something like this,

Producer:"Fucking writers, always thinking they know so much!"

Director:"Yeah, fucking writers - who needs 'em. We should just take an old 70's movie and remake it with Coolio and that hot chick from American Pie . . kids would eat it up."

Producer: "Yeah, something with X-treme sports in it, cause X-treme sells! I know, we should do Rollerball - but with rollerblades instead of skates, and a bunch of half pipes so we can have them doing radical tricks."

Director: "What's 'Rollerball'?"

Producer: "It was this movie where they rollerderby in the future and you get points for killing people . . oh and they had motorcycles on the track!!"

Director: "Yes, yes .. I can see it now . . hmm, does Coolio know how to rollerblade?"

Producer: "Dunno .. I think Snoop Dogg can ride a motorcycle though - just do lots of fast cuts and no one will be able to tell who can skate and who's faking it. Ok, this just in - the studio says it's a go . . you start shooting next week."

Director: "What about a script?"

Producer: "I told you - rollerderby, motorcycles, half pipe, Puff Daddy and X-TREME, what else do you need? Get Insane Clown Posse to play some heavy metal or whatever kids are into. Lots of fast cuts - this has to be X-TREME!!"

Director: "Yes, yes . . this will work. Fuck the writers. I've got ideas - I've got ideas for plots and things. Street luge! We'll have street luge! Get casting on the phone stat!"

It was so bad that it was almost fascinating . . I even went back and rewatched the first 30 minutes with the actors' commentary. They never mentioned the original movie. They seemed to have no idea what the movie was about. It was just LL Cool J saying "yeah, yeah! This is a hot movie, hot! Looky there . . . it's the big man himself . .ooh, I look a little sweaty there . . but that's sexy . . hot!" and the other actors saying things like "I actually got to ride the motorcycle in that scene . . hey did you know that guy that you're talking to in this scene is a french trapeze artist - he doesn't speak English" "Who?"

Very funny stuff.

It would have gone on my Victor torture list, but they forgot to set Rollerball II in the future . . so it's not really sci fi.