Nothing hurts the credibility of the film blogosphere like bad rumors. Not even supercilious comments from Armond White or Peter Bart (before he gave in and started blogging himself) have cut so deep as the embarrassment of believing word about an E.T. sequel, Daniel Radcliffe being cast as Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit or Megan Fox signing on to play Wonder Woman.
In the past 24 hours the film blogosphere experienced what I believe to be the worst movie rumor of all time: a “supported” claim by MarketSaw that George Lucas is planning a new Star Wars trilogy that would be shot in digital 3-D and directed by such prestigious filmmakers as Lucas buds Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola. Fortunately there wasn’t a whole lot of people fooled and the rumor was debunked right away, but it still made me slap my forehead to see so many sites running the story, even if to comment on how unlikely it sounded or to relay its lack of truth.
Of course, by featuring the topic for this Bloggery post, I’m contributing to the unfortunate attention the rumor is receiving. But with a week left before SpoutBlog discontinues original content, I figure it’s more important than ever to focus on what’s wrong with the movie blogs, so others are able to fluorish.
To add my own two cents to the concept behind the rumor, though, I’d just like to say that nobody should ever be excited about the idea of either Spielberg or Coppola helming a Star Wars movie. We’re already aware that the former can make a terrible flick out of Lucas’ writing, and you must realize that Coppola’s installment would be more Captain EO (a 3-D movie co-written by Lucas) than The Godfather. Or, worse, like Jack in outer space.
Check out the other film blogs’ coverage of and response to this ridiculous hoax after the jump:
…Read more
If you buy the kids only one new video release this week, make it Pinocchio. Obviously. But if you have enough spending money to buy two, pick up Howard the Duck as well. Finally on DVD in America (with a Special Edition no less), the infamous flop is anything but a great film. Yet it is hardly one of the worst films of the 1980s, despite its reputation.
For the past 23 years, I’ve stood by my childhood love for Howard the Duck, constantly acknowledging that I even owned Ellis Weiner’s novelization of the film. Technically, the best reason to defend the movie’s existence is that it directly led to the creation of Pixar. But this reason doesn’t influence anyone to watch the thing. So, in order to defend the movie’s onscreen worth, I’ve come up with ten points for why you should pick up the new Howard the Duck disc and not feel at all guilty about doing so.
…Read more
Last week we talked about the video gaming shame of Steven Spielberg, but what’s on the flipside of the Spielberg/Lucas gaming coin? George Lucas founded LucasArts some 26 years ago, and it’s still going strong. Lucas clearly had some sort of video gaming mojo that continues to vex Spielberg to this day. Although what’s even odder is that many of LucasArts’ games never crossed over into the movie realm, so maybe the duo has some sort of dual blessing/curse going on. Good games, bad movies; good movies, bad games.
…Read more
