The latest film-centric trend on YouTube is apparently making fun of the new Star Trek trailer. And it goes way beyond the Smallvilleand 90210recuts I showcased last week. TrekMovie.com is collecting all the parodies, which also include a reverse recut featuring scenes from Smallville, another recut acknowleding the parallels to the Star Warsprequels, a weak clip using music from Top Gun and a hilarious recut employing the opening theme and credits style from The A-Team. Unfortunately, there’s still no Muppet Babiesversion, but I’m going to keep on checking back with my fingers crossed.
The best video included, though, is not quite a recut in the same class as the others. This one instead composites young Kirk footage into a scene from the original Star Trek TV show. It would be great even if William Shatner hadn’t already been publicly complaining about the film, but it’s even better knowing that Shatner likely had this exact reaction today. If he’s a good sport, he’ll even film a recreation of this clever YouTube clip.
Sorry, no, this is not a clip from or trailer for a Latvian remake of the 1984 classic. Instead it is merely a Latvian cover of Ray Parker Jr.’s classic theme song, performed by Intars Busulis and the cello trio Melo-M. And it now accompanies my other favorite movie theme covers, which include GNR’s version of “Live and Let Die,” the ska cover of The Godfathertheme (by The Mudsharks), my brother’s snail-paced cover of Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone” (from Top Gun) and pretty much any cover of “The Neverending Story” (including Homestar Runner’s “The Neverending Soda.”)
The reason I bring you this Ghostbusters theme cover (aside from my having just today discovered it, thanks to Fark.com) is because it (very) loosely ties in with the new movie Wanted. See, both the song and the movie involve the intersection of Hollywood and Eastern European artists (specifically of former Soviet republics). Because Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov is originally from Kazakhstan (yes, home of Borat), and he became successful in the Russian film industry before being wooed by Universal Pictures (though it’s not Bekmambetov’s English-language debut).
On this week’s FilmCouch we have a leisurely conversation with new SpoutBlog writer Karina Longworth. We talk about the mainstream media’s suspicion of bloggers, and gender politics in pop Hollywood hits like Knocked Up, Top Gun, Risky Business, Miami Vice, and the nearly-female-free sensation, The Shawshank Redemption.
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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