hahahha

I also feel the “Pineapple Express” trailer (in both it’s red band and theatrical versions) is pretty amazing. It gives us big laughs, solid characterization, and a good sense of the film’s tone (at least I hope).

As Ziggy mention’s above; for a really good example of “selling out” watch George Sluzier’s “The Vanishing”, and then watch his American remake. That is a man completely compromising his vision.

Not only do these pics ignore most of film history, they are by no means the worst offenders. These films, by and large, aren’t even sell-outs. A ’sell-out’ is when a director compromises his vision/style for cash.

Hulk? It was such a commercial failure precisely because its very much an Ang Lee movie (and a good one, at that), full of his usual themes and fueled by a bag of neat directing/editing tricks. Just cos you don’t like it doesn’t mean its a ’sell out’.

Mall Rats? Just confirmed the truth about Kevin Smith and his lack of talent. Waxing psuedo-philosophical in his other movies was an embellishment–Smith is at home in juvenile takes on genre films (see Jersey Girl) and Mall Rats is Smith just being himself.

Finding Forrester isn’t a good movie, but it is exactly like Good Will Hunting–the movie where Gus Van Sant really sold out. That movie was a huge departure in every way for Van Sant and, despite its low budget, was essentially a Hollywood movie: light and lulling. That ‘Forrester’ didn’t win any awards doesn’t make it a sell-out, just a bad version of his previous sell-out.

As everyone has said, how about Jack? Or anything William Friedkin has done that isn’t To Live and Die in L.A., The French Connection or The Exorcist? John Frankenheimer’s Reindeer Games?

Michael Cimino’s Desperate Hours? George Sluzier’s American remake of his own The Vanishing?

Grow the fuck up.

Kevin Smith did not sell out when making “Mallrats”. He made the movie he wrote and wanted to make using his universe and cast of characters. It didn’t make money and catch on with the general public because is WAS a Kevin Smith movie.

A true sellout example: If Michael Moore was paid millions of dollars to star in commercials for Ford.

Addressing your comments about “Alien Resurrection”, this from Wikipedia:
Screenwriter Joss Whedon was unhappy with the final product. When asked in 2005 how the film differed from the script he had written, Whedon responded:

“It wasn’t a question of doing everything differently, although they changed the ending; it was mostly a matter of doing everything wrong. They said the lines…mostly…but they said them all wrong. And they cast it wrong. And they designed it wrong. And they scored it wrong. They did everything wrong that they could possibly do. There’s actually a fascinating lesson in filmmaking, because everything that they did reflects back to the script or looks like something from the script, and people assume that, if I hated it, then they’d changed the script…but it wasn’t so much that they’d changed the script; it’s that they just executed it in such a ghastly fashion as to render it almost unwatchable.” From this interview: http://www.bullz-eye.com/mguide/interviews/2005/joss_whedon.htm

Jeunet makes a pretty movie, but don’t blame Joss because the guy can’t make a monster movie to save his life.

If Spout wants to have any currency in the film blog world, it needs to drastically expand its cinema-world view.