Of remakes stopped, crazy and just plain audacious

I didn't bother to see "Mars Needs Moms," not because the idea of martians kidnapping and killing little kids' moms offended me, but just because I found something better to do (spend the weekend with mi hermano for a couple of epicly good Baseball Project shows.)

It seems, however, that that simple act of ignoring may have been my little part (and probably yours, since I don't think anyone went to see that) in stopping something much more insidious.

Robert Zemeckis, a producer of "Mars Needs Moms," had been plotting a digital remake of "Yellow Submarine," I guess just because he has the technological skills to do such a thing and, well, maybe he's just bored. Well, luckily, it seems the complete failure of "Mars Needs Moms" has led Disney to put the kibosh on that before it really got off the ground. Bully to that.

Another remake that is almost finished has apparently had a late and rather funny change of villainy in hopes of expanding its box office take.

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that MGM is changing the villains in "Red Dawn" from Chinese to North Korean in order to keep its access to the humongous Chinese box office. Take a second to let it sink in just how funny that is. The studio is apparently, though not terribly surprisingly, still looking for a distributor for the movie starring Chris Hemsworth, Josh Peck, Josh Hutcherson, Adrianne Palicki, Isabel Lucas, Connor Cruise and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

Per the L.A. Times, the changes will cost less than $1 million and will "involve changing an opening sequence summarizing the story's fictional backdrop, re-editing two scenes and using digital technology to transform many Chinese symbols to Korean." Priceless. Actually, I think that might be enough to get me to at least watch this on DVD to see how many accidental Chinese symbols remain.

And in a final word about remakes before a couple of fun videos, it seems that Netflix is making a "bold" movie into "original" programming by paying $100 million or so for David Fincher and Kevin Spacey's remake of the sublime UK TV series "House of Cards." Quotations added by me and fully intended to be facetious.

To acquire the show, which I assume it will then lease to a TV network, Netflix has agreed upfront to a two season, 26 episode commitment, but I really can't see how in the world this is going to catch on.

If you've never seen the original, it stars the late and truly great Ian Richardson as Francis Urquhart, aka F.U., an enterprising Conservative politician who rises through the British Parliament from chief whip all the way to prime minister through increasingly and comically evil means. I just don't see how Spacey or anyone else will be able to pull off his unique brand of malevolence as its translated across the pond.

But only a sucker would bet against Netflix, which now has a rather amazing 61 percent of the streaming content on the Internet (and I must say I've been thoroughly enjoying its all six seasons of "The Larry Sanders Show" - TV perfection.) Stay tuned to find out if this turns out as well as just about everything else Netflix has laid its hands on.

OK, after all that today, all I have is a couple of videos. First up comes the comedy duo of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost taking a break from the set of "Paul" to do a fairly funny "Star Wars" send-up for the folks at College Humor. All the early reviews I've seen so far "Paul" indicate that Greg Mottola's movie will deliver broad sci-fi laughs when it his theaters Friday, so I'm certainly in. Enjoy the video, then stick around for one more.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Finally today, courtesy of Yahoo, here are the first five minutes of "Source Code," director Duncan Jones' follow-up to his sci-fi gem "Moon," which is set to hit theaters April 1. I suppose if you don't know what exactly Jake Gyllenhaal's character is supposed to stop in this flick, the end of this clip is a bit of a spoiler, but since it happens in the first five minutes, I really don't think it can be much of one. I've decided I'll be going to see this flick, which also stars Michelle Monaghan. Enjoy the clip, and have a perfectly endurable Wednesday. Peace out.

Trailer Thursday: A trio of fun clips

Actually, the first and most distressing news this morning comes from Latino Review, who I've never known to get anything wrong, as much as I wish they would this time.

Yesterday came the news that "Friday Night Lights" ultra-hottie (for lack of a more technical or less piggish) term Adrianne Palicki, along with Chris Hemsworth and Josh Peck, would be joining the cast of a remake of "Red Dawn." Unaddressed in that news, of course, is the question of why in the world anyone would want to remake "Red Dawn," but I really don't want to get into that today ...

Instead let's just deal with the rather depressing fact that none other than Tony Gilroy has apparently already turned in a rewrite of this monstrosity. Now, I thought "Michael Clayton" was perhaps a tad overrated but still very enjoyable, and I think I'm one of the very few people in the world who loved Gilroy's "Duplicity" almost unconditionally. Even if you didn't, I'd imagine it's gotta be pretty much a consensus that the man deserves better than this.

Oh well, I'll just say I hope he's being very well paid for this, and move on to three things that are just thoroughly fun time-wasters.

First up is another viral marketing installment from the makers of Judd Apatow's "Funny People," and I have to say, judging from the two clips they've put together so far, there's little doubt Apatow's third directorial effort will be thoroughly entertaining when it comes out at the end of July.

First came the trailer for the fake NBC tv show "Yo Teach!" starring Jason Schwartzman, which you can still watch here, and the clip below is even funnier. I don't want to spoil it too much, but it's Adam Sandler and Justin Long in a dead-on spoof of "Little Man" and any other flick that makes the always hilarious (sarcasm, in case it doesn't come through) move of putting a man's face on the body of a baby. Enjoy.



I was thinking the other day about doing a midyear scorecard of sorts, listing my 10 top movies from the first half of 2009, but I decided to cheat and put that off until the end of July to include the aforementioned Apatow flick and Michael Mann's "Public Enemies," set to drop July 1 with Johnny Depp, Marion Cotillard and Christian Bale in the saga of John Dillinger vs. the FBI. Those would have to be the two flicks I'm most looking forward to for the rest of this summer (unless Hayao Miyazaki's "Ponyo" somehow gets a wide theatrical release, keep hope alive!), so enjoy this 90-second clip "Assault" clip, because what workday isn't just a little bit better with a good gun battle?



And finally, like apparently everyone else in the world, I just can't get enough of vampires. I've made my love for "Let the Right One In" (for the sorry American remake, that title is apparently too long - it will simply be "Let Me In" - blurg!) clear on this site many times, and I thought the second season premiere of "True Blood" just set things up perfectly (and I'm about to dive into the fourth of Charlayne Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels, on which it's based.)

But the one vampire vehicle I'm most looking forward to this year would have to be Chan-wook Park's "Thirst," the poster for which is at left. Of Park's movies so far, I've only managed to see "Oldboy" (another lame American remake alert - see a theme here?) and "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance," and those were both just fantastic. As you can see from the (redband, though I really can't imagine why after watching it) trailer below, the flick is about a priest who goes to Africa to find the cure for a deadly disease but, of course, comes back as one of the walking dead. Enjoy, and have a perfectly passable Thursday. Peace out.