The Lego Movie: Biggest Oscar Snub Ever or Not Really?

     The nominations for the 87th Academy Awards was revealed this week. There were films that were obviously going to be nominated like Birdman which is one of the top contenders with 9 nominations. Of course with the excitement of movies that were nominated, part of anticipating Oscar nominations, along with seeing what award Leonardo DiCaprio will NOT be getting this year, is seeing who gets snubbed. We, in a ironic sense, we’re not disappointed, actually we were. There was Selma being nominated for only Best Picture and Original Song, along with a very white list of nominations. Unfortunately we’re not here to talk about Selma, we’re talking about another film that was supposedly done wrong: The Lego Movie.

The Lego Movie managed to get only one nomination, Best Original Song. The director for The Lego Movie, Phillip Lord, responded to the news in the hilarious and well respectable fashion by tweeting a picture of a Lego build Oscar saying “It’s okay, I made my own.” Others didn’t have the same reaction. The response to The Lego Movie’s spread like wildfire all over social media with people being completely upset with the movie being snubbed. It wasn’t shame on you I’ll boycott the Oscars, but you can tell that a lot of people were upset with it, acting like it was the biggest Oscar snub of all time. But was it?

Movies are a form of storytelling. There are two types of storytelling. One is to simply tell a story and one to tell just for entertainment. When I think of the Oscars, I think of an academy award show for the prestige films. It is an award show where we recognize the films that were made for the artistic craft for making movies and the art of storytelling that doesn’t get as much mainstream appeal as most of the blockbuster films get, like The Lego Movie. It’s is for the Gone Girls and The Imitation Games, and Birdmans that hold a higher degree of cinema photography and acting that most mainstream entertainment films don’t have and are in a different sense and tone than most of the other blockbuster movies like The Lego Movie. The movies that usually do get nominated for Oscars, especially in roles like Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director are the movies that suppose to best represent those professions and most entertainment films like the Lego Movie doesn’t fall into those categories. If we did put the Lego Movie in those categories, it would’ve been almost a joke.

      I’m not taking a dig at the movie. It is an amazing movie and I can tell that there was a lot that was put in to make everything awesome. It hit right in the nostalgia button where you would make all of these epic adventures just sitting there playing with your Legos as a kid but, it gotten what it deserved with the nomination category it was placed in. I could’ve seen it being in Best Animated Movie, but you had other great animated movies and that was probably the committee trying to please everyone.. It is lucky that it got the nomination it did. Anything else would’ve been overkill. Besides I don’t think Lord and The Lego movie is hurting by this snub at all. They’ve gotten tons of money and they are going to win a few VMAs or something.

Do you think The Lego Movie was wrongly snubbed? Do you agree with what I said above?

Should There Be Another Super Mario Bros Movie?

     We learned last week that Sony was deciding to make an animated movie off of the immensely popular Super Mario franchise. According to Buzzfeed, thanks to the recent Sony hacks, we all know that Sony Studio Chief Amy Pascal and producer Avi Arad have exchanged emails saying that they are meeting with some important people to try to make a Super Mario movie happen and have acquired the film rights to do the movie. The film hasn’t been greenlit yet. It is in the very earlier stages as according to Arad, nothing has been closed. Not only is Arad trying to make a Mario movie happen, he is trying to make a Mario Movie Franchise as he has an email to Sony Pictures Animation President of Production Michelle Raimo Kouyate saying that he can “think of 3-4 movies right out of the gate on this.”

Like a lot of you when hearing this news I went back to the 1993 live action Mario Bros. Movie. We thought of how bad the movie was. It had some inconsistencies with the actual Mario Bros. games other just having stuff like stores named after Mario Bros enemies and Luigi not looking like Luigi. The actors were not to fond with the movie. Bob Hoskins who played Mario said it was the worst film he has done and Dennis Hopper (King Koopa) said it was an absolute nightmare. Adding to these problems, the movie has a legacy of being one of the worst video game movies ever, along with House of the Dead and whatever Uwe Boll movie you can think of. It is always in the top 5. You can say that the Super Mario Bros was pretty much the reason why Nintendo has been so reluctant of making movies with some of their biggest franchises like Zelda or Metroid, especially here in the states. Nintendo has even on some occasion mentioned, jokingly, how embarrassing the movie was like on Mario’s old website and Shigeru Miyamoto talking about it in some interviews. So with how horrible the live action Super Mario Bros. movie was, why should there be another one?

     Another question could be can their be a good Mario movie? For an live action movie, probably not. An animated Mario movie, there seems to be more of a probability. There has been another Mario movie besides the live action film. There was an full length anime movie in the 80s in Japan called Super Mario Bros: Peach-Hime Kyushutsu Dai Sakusen!. It was basically Mario and Luigi’s Adventure in the NES wonderland. They were in a quest to go into the Mushroom Kingdom in their NES console to save Princess Peach. It doesn’t have to be like the anime, there is some inspiration to be drawn from it.

     Bottom line, if there is indeed a Mario movie happening, what Sony should be doing is looking closely to what went wrong with the live action movie. They need to learn from those mistakes. Even though it is animated and they could be more freedom to delve into the series than what the people that did the live action movie had, there is still a huge opportunity to screw things up majorly. What another thing Sony should do that the live action film didn’t is draw more from the actual franchise! There is a lot of things to work with, especially now. The games in the Mario series have gotten a bit more story driven. Super Mario Galaxy is the best example of this as not only does it give us a plot other than the usual save Princess Peach from Bowser, but you have to save the actual galaxy as Bowser plans to create one in his own image, doing away with the current one. It also gave us a bit of character background with Rosalina’s story, That is another thing this Mario movie can get its inspiration from. Not the story, but how it is presented. Good luck Sony, you’ll need it…

What are your thoughts on a new Mario movie being made? Is it a good idea or will it be bad? Leave your comments please as I would love to hear them.

Is There a X-Men Reboot in the Works? Part 2: Has Marvel Been Planning One All Along?

     Jumping on what I said earlier in the previous post, X-Men: Apocalypse is coming and it seems that director Bryan Singer and Marvel are planning to make this movie the biggest event to happen in the X-Men universe. You get a sense that something is going to happen in Apocalypse that will forever change the franchise forever. Hopefully one of these things could mean a reboot. In the previous post, I gave reasons why this seems likely. The biggest thing that seems plausible that they could be rebooting the franchise is them recasting Storm, Jean Grey, and Cyclops. The recasting seems almost like a passing of the torch from previous characters. What I forgot to add that there could’ve been possible clues in the recent X-Men movies giving key hints that Marvel has been planning on rebooting the franchise for a while.

First lets go a bit deeper into the movies. Not the entire X-Men movie franchise, sorry Wolvie fans, but the first two trilogies. You can see that there are two import story arcs. The first one (X-Men, X-2, & X-Men the Last Stand, sets everything up in the events in the universe. The first three films. What is important is what’s happening in the second trilogy.

The second trilogy, First Class, Days of Future’s Past, and Apocalypse has a certain theme that correlates between them. That theme is time. First Class is the film that sets what is the beginning of the timeline and the others and what is, setting up the events that happened in the first trilogy. The next two movies pretty much involve Director Bryan Singer channeling the Terminator franchise with Days of Future Past and Apocalypse as both films are about fixing disastrous futures set by what happens in the current timeline. Days involves time traveling into the past and Singer has stated that it will borrow some elements from the Age of Apocalypse’s storyline meaning that the X-Men will be trying to prevent the Apocalypse timeline in some way. Of course one of the ways Apocalypse could end is there could be something that will trigger a big reset of everything. This relaunch could do away with everything that has happened in the two trilogies and start a new universe which will be our reboot.

     I could be reading a bit too much into things, but this wouldn’t surprise me a bit. Marvel has been all about looking at the big picture of things. Making plans around movies and shaping them up for the next big thing to happen. The Avengers and the possible events that are happening in that movie universe leading to the Infinity Wars are proof of that. Again, in the last post, the new actors, the Deadpool connection to the universe, and whatever happens in Apocalypse could be making things more obvious. It would be actually impressive if Marvel had this in mind when they decided to do this with First Class.

Do you think that Marvel is considering a X-Men reboot or they should be considering one? I would love to hear your feedback.

Is There a X-Men Reboot in the Works? Part 1: Why There Should Be One

     Tuesday we were treated to possible actors who could play Jean Grey and Cyclops (Scott Summers) for X-Men: Apocalypse film coming out May 2016. Actresses that might play Jean Grey include Chloe Mortez and Elle Fanning while the actors playing Cyclops are mostly unknowns like Ben Hardy and Charlie Rowe. It was announced a while ago that Storm, Jean Grey, and Cyclops would be recast for Apocalypse so it’s good to finally see some potential faces and see who could be right for the role. Apocalypse seems like it will be the biggest X-Men film yet. It will be no doubt that there will be some big changes after Apocalypse. Could one of these changes be a reboot? There are some signs that this could be possible or some reasons why a reboot should be the next step.

New Actors = New Start

     Let’s start with the obvious. We are getting new actors to play Storm, Scott and Jean. New actors playing these character could just be the perfect opportunity to start things over.  Apocalypse could be or it should be a vehicle for a reboot for these actors. We could see how well they can do the roles as well as see what works and what doesn’t.

The Time Continuity is Fucked

     One of the biggest set backs of the X-Men film franchise is the time continuity. It’s a big mess. You have examples like Charles Xavier being in a wheel chair at the end of First Class and walking in X-Men Origins: Wolverine years later, as well as Emma Frost age in both films. Apocalypse resetting everything into a new reboot of the franchise could be just the thing to make the timeline not as messy, unless the producers and writers decide to ruin the new timeline as well….

Hugh Jackman

     If you are new to the franchise, Mr. Jackman has played Wolverine in the entire franchise. From X-Men in 2000 to Days of Futures Past in 2014 and a few spin-offs, Jackman has played Wolverine for 14 years (Actually 17 because he will reprise the role in the sequel to The Wolverine). I don’t know about you but it is time for him to pass the role to somebody else. Jackman himself has went back and forth on whether he would retire from the character and hang his adamantium claws up. Despite on whether he wants to continue to play the role, a recast of Wolverine is inevitable. A reboot would be just the thing to transition the role to another actor.

Marvel Movie Universe!!!™

The last reason is probably the most obvious money wise. The Marvel Movie Universe has done Marvel some good in the past few years. Connecting already bankable movies like Captain America to other bankable movies like Iron Man, creating a huge comic book all-star movie cast like The Avengers has made their studios billions. Why not X-Men? They are already trying to do connect the X-Men movie franchise to other movies like the upcoming Deadpool movie. A new reboot could be just the perfect opportunity as a new reboot could allow things to be connected perfectly. Especially as stated earlier, the current timeline is jumbled. A new reboot could have things like Deadpool in the X-Men universe make more sense.

Do you think there is a reboot happening?

DC Movie Universe: What Will Marvel Do?

     Earlier this week we got news that along with the new “Justice League” movie, Batman v Superman, DC and Warner Bros. is planning  to release  a lineup of superhero movies for most of the superheroes involved. That means we will be getting an Aquaman movie along with a Wonder Woman movie (finally). Warner Bros. and DC are already making plans for Wonder Woman, looking for female directors to make the film. Does all of these movies being planned after a huge all-star superhero lineup movie sound familiar? It should. It sounds like DC is taking a lesson from Marvel’s Movie Universe and they are making a universe of their own.

This is kinda no surprise. We hear that the sequel to Man of Steel is going to not only Batman in it, then Wonder Woman, and then Aquaman, Cyborg, The Flash, and possibly a Robin? Not only who’s in the movie, it would be awfully foolish of DC not to try to copy Marvel’s movie strategy. Ever since Marvel came up with this idea to have a majority of every superhero movie they come out linked, every movie has been a hit. The Avengers, which brings this universe all together is Marvel’s biggest success to date and its follow up, The Age of Ultron, is the most anticipated movie of 2014. DC’s plan seems to be let’s beat Marvel at its own game. The question is what can Marvel do to stay on top?

As far as movies go, Marvel doesn’t need to do much. As long as they keep up with the quality of story and production, they will be fine. Marvel has a finely ran machine in the movie department. If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. In order for Marvel to excel, they have to go past movies and maybe start venturing into new territory. Maybe Primetime TV? Primetime TV is where DC reign. DC has had it run of Primetime shows for the past few years. We had Lois and Clark before Smallville on the CW and now DC has shows like Arrow as well as newly premiered shows like The Flash and Gotham. Since DC is trying to take on Marvel on their home turf, movies, Marvel needs to do the same. We haven’t gotten much from Marvel when it comes to Primetime shows. We do have Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, but that seems to be the only thing right now. The time is now for them to expand a bit. There’s a possibility that S.H.I.E.L.D might be them testing the waters for something big. There are rumors that there is an X-Men TV series being planned and that would be a good start for Marvel to come out on the offensive. They do have some good material for them to put out. It would be nice if we do see something else like a Fantastic Four drama on the CW or Fox as well.

Whatever the plan is for Marvel, they have to consider how they’re going to outdo not only themselves and the competition. They have reinvented the Superhero genere, making it a spectacle instead of it just being a movie about your favorite superhero. Whether or not if they are going to do the Primetime TV takeover route, I’m sure they are making plans on what they can do. Hopefully it will be good.

Labyrinth sequel: Will It Make Dance Magic or Be Banished into the Bog of Eternal Stench?

     On Friday, we just got news that there might be a Labyrinth sequel! In an article in Variety, we learned that in an interview with Jim Henson, talking about Billy Crystal being involved in their upcoming film “Which Witch” that the company is considering developing a sequel to the 1986 film, along with a Fraggle Rock movie and a sequel to The Dark Crystal. A lot of people, including myself,  are excited about this. Labyrinth is an 80s classic. I can ensure you that it is constantly brought up in discussion of what is the best movie of the 80s. Jim Henson took you into a magical world full of wonderment full of creatures that could remove limbs at will, fruit that could take to a party in your wildest dreams, and the wonderment of David Bowe in tights. The news is fascinating, there’s a dread in me that the sequel, if everything is confirmed and set to film, would not live up to standards.

The idea of doing sequels years later isn’t new. A lot of times they have been bad and less than stellar as well. Rarely do these year-gaped sequels do well at all. The Star Wars prequels had people in awe over what the exact hell did they just watched, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull moved people to get out of their seats and asked for their money back, and we don’t speak of Oz: The Great and Powerful. Why is it that these movie sequels fail? There are some considerations.

One is that as obvious there is an age gap between sequel and original, the same could be said for the demographic. You have two different audiences to consider. The ones who grew up watching the movie and the one who mostly didn’t. It can be hard trying to appeal to both demographics. Some things will get lost with the new moviegoers and whatever to appeal to the new moviegoers will not get the old generation. Another factor is how the sequel is made is the movie itself. Usually the reason a studio decides to make a sequel for a movie years ago is to make a quick buck off of nostalgia and it shows. It shows how poorly put together it is compared to the originals and it puts off the entire audience.

Before I put the Labyrinth sequel down even before it is even green lit, there is a chance it could be good. There are some year-gaped sequels that are good, not better than the original, but they don’t suck. Even it technically isn’t a sequel, Disney’s Return to Oz was great. To some, not better than the 1939 movie with Judy Garland, but it was a far more superior Oz movie than Oz: The Great and Powerful and the recent Oz sequel Dorothy of Oz was. Why was that? Because they kept true to the source material. The producer and writers knew what they were doing and that they had to remember the magic of the first movie and what made people love the source material. Hopefully whoever attaches themselves to this movie remembers that.

What are your thoughts on the Labyrinth sequel? Is a sequel a good idea? Will it be good?