I cannot believe I’m posting in defense of Kate Beckinsale. Ha!
c.

When confronted by those old farts, I always point out that the Bogie Maltese Falcon, considered definitive, was the third version of Hammet’s book. In fact, the OG version was on TCM last night.

Speaking of old movies, I know what Kelson means about watching a movie in a certain frame of mind and that changing your interpretation. There is a scene in Citizen Kane in which Orson Welles is trashing a room in a fit of rage. If you tell yourself while you’re watching it that Kane is actually having a vicious attack of the clumsies, it becomes by far the most hilarious slapstick scene ever recorded.

Craig, IMDB still lists it upcoming in 2007. That’s something to look forward to!

Katherine, Clash of the Titans at least is good bad. It’s very watchable, I think, just for the visuals (as Harryhausen’s last film). And I like Bubo.

Kelson, parody of what? Summer action films?

James, I’m wondering about Date Movie myself.

Allison Hanningan is my I love her and try to watch everything she is in actress. Yet that may have finally been broken with Date Movie, which I have yet to bring myself to watch. After it was strained by an American Wedding.

I realized a few weeks after I saw it that it’s the monster movie equivalent of “The Eye of Argon.” If you haven’t read that, it’s reputed to be the worst fantasy story ever written. It tries to hard to be Conan but ends up being more like Plan Nine From Outer Space with barbarians. (That link goes to a blog post of mine, which in turn links to a site that has the story.)

Actually, I was thinking about Van Helsing recently. At the time I saw it, I thought it was a perfect example of what happens when you put every cliché you can think of into one movie. Last night I found myself thinking the same thing at one point during Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest—except that the Pirates crew actually managed to make it work. I think the main difference (aside from a better script and better acting) is that Pirates acknowledges the absurdity and revels in the comedy, instead of trying, as Van Helsing did, to be serious.

Any time I’m tempted to watch a movie because the cast is impressive, I mutter “Clash of the Titans, Clash of the Titans,” until the urge goes away. (Laurence Olivier! Maggie Smith! Ursula Andress! You’d think it’d be good, wouldn’t you? You’d be wrong.)

On the other hand, I suspect there’s a threshold of not-sucking above which eye candy can distract you from plotholes. (See Halle Berry’s skintight leather in X3. She can’t act, but she can certainly sway.)

There was talk of Brosnan working on a sequel. I wonder what’s happening with that?

Now that it no longer has the wonder of newness, I can’t imagine this holding any real interest for anybody. Any movie sufficently dire to make Stephen King take his name off the credits, given what has been done to most (not quite all) of his books once Hollywood has had its way with them, must be truly beyond the pale.