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. …Read more
I’m skeptical about James Franco portraying Allen Ginsberg in the courtroom-set biopic Howl (can anyone but David Cross be cast after I’m Not There?), but now that Paul Rudd, Jeff Daniels, Mary-Louise Parker, Alan Alda and David Straithairn are also aboard, it could at least be a decent ensemble piece.
Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers, U2 and now … Blue Man Group? The painted trio is the latest group to be given a 3-D concert film. I wonder if David Cross just blue himself in the hopes of getting a part in it.
New Line has acquired an upcoming novel from Richard Doetsch about a man accused of killing his wife and his trip back in time — in one-hour increments — to save her. Titled The Thirteenth Hour, Variety says it’s being described as The Bourne Identity meets The Time Traveler’s Wife, but obviously it’s more like The Fugitive meets Memento (meets — hopefully — David Cross).
New Line is also making a romantic comedy that’s an obvious cross between Slap Shot and The Devil Wears Prada. And, not obviously, it’s based on a true story.
Over at the AMC blog SciFi Scanner, there’s a post about the accuracy of Jason Bourne’s condition in the Bourne movies. At the World Science Festival, held last weekend in NYC, there was a panel titled The Brain and Bourne: Neuroscience in the Bourne Trilogy that featured Bourne Identity director Doug Liman and psychiatrist and neuroscientist Giulio Tononi. And according to Tononi, the sort of amnesia that Bourne suffers from, which includes the ability to retain certain skills despite an overall loss of memory, is rare but does exist.
Interesting, but does it really matter? Nobody making the Bourne movies seems to have known its accuracy, and they probably didn’t care. And neither do most moviegoers. Amnesia is simply a good plot device for movies, and oftentimes they’re more about something else than the condition, accurate or not. So, here’s a list of some of my favorite movies with amnesia at its forefront, plus the respective reasons for my not caring if they are realistic or not.
The Bourne Identity(plus The Bourne Supremacyand The Bourne Ultimatum) - Because I’m not rating these in order, I’ll begin with the one already mentioned. Jason Bourne’s amnesia is, of course, a good excuse for a thrilling story, but to me it’s also a metaphor for U.S. intelligence post-Cold War and certainly post-9/11, showing us how, despite efforts to forget or disconnect from foreign policy decisions and/or controversial operations of the past, certain things, people, relationships (etc.) may come back to bite us on the ass. …Read more
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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