When I first saw Inglourious Basterds at Cannes, I walked out of the theater and felt like something was … off. I rushed to my computer and wrote a dismissive review. “Quentin Tarantino,” I wrote, “has never seemed to strain so hard to just make A Quentin Tarantino Film.” I complained about the film’s pacing, the quality of its dialogue, the excessive exposition. “Basterds plays almost like an assembly edit, defiantly presented as-is,” I concluded.

And then I saw the film again, this week, in New York, in a version different from the one I saw at Cannes. Some scenes are said to be shorter, although I couldn’t tell you specifically which ones; one scene excised before the French premiere has been reinstated. After that screening, I went back and read what I wrote about the film from France, and cringed. The review of Inglourious Basterds I wrote in May simply does not apply to the film I saw with the same title this week.

This happens sometimes. We don’t talk about it much, but it happens. Sometimes movies change — and Tarantino and The Weinstein Company have made no secret of the fact that Basterds has changed sine its Cannes screenings. But critics change, too.
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In response to the leaked promo trailer for Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant remake, some people are claiming the film doesn’t look like a Herzog work at all. This is surprising, especially since the scene with the old ladies reminds us of the Aguirre act-at-gunpoint legend. Plus, ever since we heard the news of this “reimagining” we thought it was too befitting for Herzog to rework Abel Ferrara. However, that had more to do with the idea that both filmmakers are batshit crazy, not that their films are really that similar.

Still, wouldn’t it be more exciting to see Herzog take on something even less appropriate for his style and taste? Inspired by the Twitter meme #wernerherzogremake, which began yesterday in connection with the Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans promo, we’ve selected ten films we’d love to see Herzog redo just to see what his warped perspective would bring to these stories. While most of them are slightly tied to something he’s made in the past, each is still a completely unlikely project for Herzog to take on. But hopefully he’ll only see such implausibility as a challenge and actually go with one of our suggestions.
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There will be sequels to both Star Trek and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Not only are these now officially greenlit, but they’re also what we call “likely sequels” prior to their certainty — meaning we all saw them coming way before Paramount and Fox, respectively, announced them. However, it’s not necessarily a given that a successful movie will always spawn a follow-up. For example, box office record-holder Titanic could never become a franchise.

Of course, people will always joke about the possibilities for a Titanic sequel, and that kind of humor is what makes the Twitter meme #unlikelysequels so entertaining. Unfortunately, 140 characters allows for little more than a proposed sequel title (and yes, “Titanic 2: Jack’s Back” is among them), so we have decided to expand on ten favorites by providing the synopsis and, for some, casting suggestions.
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I don’t watch American Idol, not even when it features Quentin Tarantino or the singing of “movie songs.” And from what I can tell, I didn’t miss much last night when the show brought the filmmaker back on as a mentor while the finalists sang a terrible selection of soundtrack hits. Apparently Tarantino was wasted on the broadcast, and I don’t mean intoxicated; I mean he was pretty much useless to the way the show works. But here’s one thing: the AI episode got people on the film blogs talking, and that might give the show attention it doesn’t normally receive — not that it really needs any additional viewers or coverage, of course.

Oh well, here’s another thing: in connection with the show (though really not seen until today), we got a new clip from Inglourious Basterds featuring Mike Myers, which seems to be a joke — or a deterrent for some of us if it’s not a joke.

After the jump, the internerds weigh in on their opinion of the episode, the filmmaker and the clip:

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Even if you love the original Escape to Witch Mountain, you have to welcome a remake. The 1975 sci-fi Disney film has some very dated special effects — though the visible wires used to “levitate” a handgun and a harmonica give it a campy charm — and it’s not exactly the well-respected classic that The Black Hole or Old Yeller is, anyway. So, better a remake (or “modern re-imagining”) of a slightly beloved movie, which has already been redone once, to give The Rock another fulfillment of his Disney contract and utilize all the “perfect” digital effects now available.

While it seems that eventually all Disney live-action classics will be remade, potentially rendering obsolete the careers of Dean Jones, Kevin Corcoran and those ugly kids from Mary Poppins, there are some that may, like Witch Mountain, deserve to be recycled. Disney has previously erred in reworking films like The Absent-Minded Professor (Robin Williams is no Fred MacMurray) and The Shaggy Dog (Tim Allen is no MacMurray, either, nor even is he Tommy Kirk), and it’s mistakenly producing new versions of Swiss Family Robinson and 20,000 Leauges Under the Sea. But there are so many other films, most forgotten, that would better lend themselves to remakes.

Here we’ve selected 10 such classics, all but one live-action features, and we welcome you to suggest any others you may wish to see updated and/or re-imagined.
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If Tyler Perry gets an Oscar nomination for his acting in Madea Goes to Jail, can a washed-up actress scold him for taking away female roles? Actually, could it just be Cuba Gooding Jr. in drag, a la Boat Trip?

Seriously, though, Madea won’t be up for any Academy Awards next year, but damn is Perry’s character popular. Enough that the sassy matriarch has now evolved from a supporting character into the star of her own vehicle (which gave the filmmaker his biggest opening yet this past weekend). Yes, it’s true that Madea is a central figure in most of Perry’s films and has previously been the main protagonist in his plays (including the one Madea Goes to Jail is based on), but in the movie world she was introduced as a secondary role in Diary of a Mad Black Woman. So, now she belongs in that small club of supporting characters who’ve earned their own film(s); other members of which include Jay and Silent Bob, Bruce and Lloyd, Cousin Eddie, Marshal Samuel Gerard, the Scorpion King and Wolverine.

And Madea is one of the very few female characters to belong to the club, which is another good reason for an actress to scold Perry. But the problem also lies with the people who write woman characters, apparently, since in coming up with ten other supporting characters who deserve their own spin off, we managed to only include two females on our list. Perhaps if we’d permitted classic film characters there’d be more to choose from — though even then we might be more likely to include a Peter Lorre or a William Demarest role than a Thelma Ritter or Eve Arden.
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Ratings were up 10% from last year, and polls indicate that viewers of the Oscars last night mostly enjoyed the telecast and would like Hugh Jackman back to host next year. So why am I still harping on the negatives? Well, no matter how many entertaining elements of the ceremony people remind me of, I have to argue that while the awards themselves were great, the television show was not. And unfortunately, I was not inside the Kodak auditorium where I might have better appreciated the things we all at home should have been able to appreciate. And anything I found entertaining from where I sat in my apartment was pretty much thanks to talented presenters and winners, such as Philippe Petit, Tina Fey, Janusz Kaminski, Dustin Lance Black, Kunio Kato and Danny Boyle.

And I’m not the only one who has complaints. Below you’ll find some criticisms from bloggers who either thought the show was completely terrible or thought it was mostly good with only a few minor gripes.

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Is it possible that Jeff Wells and The Playlist’s shared gloomy outlook on 2009 Oscar bait (or lack thereof) has anything to do with the fact that neither Kate Winslet nor Marisa Tomei has a film coming out this year? And that even if they had something coming soon, there’s a good chance they wouldn’t get naked for it? Probably this fact and subfact have nothing to do with their premature worries, and it’s just a coincidence that the internerds were hit by the misfortunate news that Winslet is giving up onscreen nudity plus the clarification from Tomei that she’s actually not in a nudity phase of her life.

After the jump, some of the more together reactions (meaning the ones not from gossip blogs claiming Winslet hates us).

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The Playlist has posted a teaser of the teaser trailer for Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, which is scheduled to premiere on Entertainment Tonight tonight. Out of context, Brad Pitt’s performance as “the Tennessee hick leader of the Jewish American ‘Basterd’ elite soldiers who scalp German Nazis to instill fear and further their reputation across Europe” seems funny in the wrong way … but it is really out of context.

Both are broadly classifiable as science fiction, but Alien is basically a horror flick and Aliens has all the conventions of a war film. That’s a pretty slick transition from one type of movie to another, especially since the switch was so immediate within the series. Most movie franchises don’t play with genre in such a way until they’ve gone through a number of sequels, and even then the series usually just simply takes its characters into outer space, a la Moonraker, Jason X and Leprechaun 4.

Genre jumping isn’t that easy, though, unless a franchise inhabits a whole universe in which to expand through. Like Star Wars, for example. Originally a film series, the Star Wars franchise spread out into novels, which has allowed for dips into the romance genre and now horror. That’s right, an upcoming novel by horror author Joe Schreiber, titled Deathtroopers, takes the Star Wars universe into frightening territory described by Schreiber as “in the vein of The Shining and Alien, with a little dose of William Gibson mixed in.”

So, if Star Wars can venture into the horror genre, what other movie franchises should attempt a genre jump? To toy with the idea, we’ve selected five film series in need of a change and suggested a possible redirection of genre for each.
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The nominations for the 81st Annual Academy Awards were announced this morning, and they likely have upset a large number of people in the comic book geek community. Yes, the most obvious snubs have to do with The Dark Knight, which failed to garner nods for Best Picture, Best Director or even Best Screenplay — yes, obviously Heath Ledger was at least nominated. And at least the comic book adaptation did get a few craft awards, including Best Cinematography. Could we blame the Academy’s usual penchant for Holocaust movies? Perhaps, since The Reader was a surprise nominee for Best Picture and Best Director. What else was overlooked and what else was shockingly present? My immediate thoughts after the jump:

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I’ll start with a short disclaimer: I fully recognize the potential arrogance in claiming to know the four most misunderstood films of the year. To say that I have some supreme viewing power that allows me to see these films for what they truly are reeks of a high and mighty attitude that I’d rather stay away from. However, as many critics are preparing their final tallies of what they loved and hated in 2008, I simply feel the need to put into print a positive perspective on four films that seem to be frequently criticized or overlooked.

That being said, there is a certain irony in the fact that all four of these films deal with a kind of misunderstanding. Whether it be a mix-up between characters or a challenging thematic element that dares the viewer to reevaluate the way they approach the subject matter, I feel each of these films does something particularly audacious with the concept of false impression.

One other quick side note: It is impossible for me to get to the core of these films without spoilers, so if you haven’t seen them and would like to view them blind, please return to the article after watching Joel and Ethan Coen’s Burn After Reading, Mary Bronstein’s Yeast, Johan Renck’s Downloading Nancy and Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs.

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I wish I were more familiar with the cartoon Thundercats so that I could properly appreciate this new fan-made trailer. And yet it’s such a well-done video that it’s hard to even think I could appreciate it more than I already do. Someone clearly put way too much time into this thing, picking out appropriate segments from Troy, the Lord of the Rings trilogy and other films, and digitally painting the faces of Brad Pitt, Vin Diesel and Hugh Jackman (and an actress nobody seems to be able to identify). It’s so terrific that the real Thundercats movie (potentially arriving in 2010) will no doubt be a disappointment in comparison (perhaps as bad as this old fake Thundercats movie trailer). In fact, this version’s awkward CG-rendered Snarf is likely better than what Warner Bros. will give us (the actual film is reportedly going to be entirely computer-animated).

I was going to initially say that this is the best fake trailer I’ve ever seen, but I probably say that too often. Plus, I’m going to stick with the Where’s Waldo parody of The Bourne Identity for that honor. Still, this is one of the best I’ve seen in terms of technical achievement.

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To borrow a line from Lou Lumenick: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is this year’s Forrest Gump. This is not really arguable. In addition to sharing a screenwriter (Eric Roth), Robert Zemeckis’ 1994 Best Picture winner and David Fincher’s 2008 Best Picture front-runner (at least, as of this writing) both put groundbreaking special effects to the service of sprawling stories, spanning many decades and weaving a breadcrumb trail through modern American history, in which a man holds a torch for a woman who can’t reciprocate his love until her dreams of autonomy are spectacularly dashed. For me, the Gump comparison is a pejorative, a shorthand way to say, “This film will likely make a lot of money and win a lot of awards, and yet is so phony and cloying and gimmicky that its success will some day be seen by some as a tragedy.” But to others, the second coming of Gump would be a blessing. An Oscars-bait blockbuster? As Lumenick put it, before seeing the film, “Paramount would be thrilled, and possibly the Academy would be as well.”

Watching Benjamin Button, occasionally I actively loathed it, but mostly I just felt genuinely disappointed that it seemed so lacking in the genuine feeling that makes a bloated, over-serious, firing-on-all-cylinders Hollywood blow-out even temporarily satisfying. Ultimately, we buy into films like the film Benjamin Button wants to be because they offer our only chance at that unique catharsis: they let us cry, in public, surrounded by and united with strangers who are also crying, regardless of our individual age, class or station in life.  But Benjamin Button cannot be effective as an audience-leveling tear-inducer, because it’s not a film about people. It’s a film about the feat of its own whiz-bang, Frankensteinian digital imagery, drunk on its own accomplishment to an extent that feels quasi-ethical.

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