When it was just the Adoption Community protesting the marketing of Orphan, a hackneyed horror flick about yet another evil adoptee, it was merely another minor controversy incited by a select interest group. But now members of the U.S. House and Senate have gotten involved with a letter campaign to Warner Bros. condemning the studio’s seemingly anti-adoption advertisements for and message in the film.
Is this really necessary after so many years and so many stories containing fucked-up orphans? Sure, Hollywood has given us too few Annie types in cinema over the past few decades, but certainly ‘80s television made up for this history with the likes of Diff’rent Strokes, Webster, Small Wonder, My Two Dads, Punky Brewster, et al. And adoptions were on the rise for most of that time, only dropping slightly in recent years, possibly due to the dwindling economy.
That isn’t to say we agree with cinema’s consistent misrepresentation of orphans or adoptees, so to expose the unfair reputation of parentless kids, we take a look at ten types of screwed-up orphans, which potentially keep more people from adopting them. Check out our list of characters and films after the jump:
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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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The new action film sequel Crank: High Voltage is being advertised with the tagline “He was dead…But he got better.” Aside from sort of ruining the ending to the first Crank for those of us who haven’t seen it, this copy from the posters has been receiving a lot of attention for how ridiculous it sounds. Fans of the original have to disagree with the tagline, because they know Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) was not dead; in fact it is clear from the final scene that he miraculously survived that fall from the helicopter. Meanwhile, people less familiar with the movie simply find the idea of a dead character being resurrected for the benefit of a sequel to be laughably unacceptable, as if such an idea is unheard of in Hollywood.
But even if Chelios had been officially declared dead at the end of Crank, the sequel certainly wouldn’t be the first to revive a main character for a follow-up. Obviously horror films do it all the time, and it’s not exactly uncommon in sci-fi, fantasy, action and comic book genres, either. Even while ignoring the invincibility convention of contemporary slasher films, we were able to select six sequels in which a deceased (or presumed deceased) character returns.
Warning: Spoilers may be found after the jump.
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Special guest SpoutBlogger Joe Swanberg already 
