Monday, February 21, 2005
"You Play Ball Like A Girl 2"
Well I'm nervous for this one. The Sandlot sequel, due to come out on April 22nd, is probably going to be a DTV (direct to video) effort.
Writer/Director David M. Evans, also writer/director of the original, is fucking with a classic here and I hope he doesn't spoil its reputation.
I don't want to have to say, "The Sandlot is great, but then there's the sequel...," much like you have to now with The NeverEnding story series. The first was great, the follow-ups, not so much.
It is encouraging that James Earl Jones is back, whose character I guess must be about 105 years old, at least. He is surely one of my favorite actors of all time and I'll look forward to seeing anything he's in, but this one will be judged in a different light.
There are rules to making sequels. You can't make the same movie but just with different characters or a different scenario. There are a plethora of sequels coming out this year, including Mad Max 4, Be Cool, Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, XXX: State of the Union, Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, and looking forward to 2006 and 2007, we have Die Hard 4.0 and The Bourne Ultimatum coming our way.
I'm not a huge sequel fan. They are very difficult to pull off. I think Ocean's 12 did a good job because it didn't take itself too seriously. The Bourne Supremacy was a decent sequel as well, but in making a sequel, you are pretty much running up a steep hill loaded with land mines, blindfolded, wearing shackles around your ankles and the wind in your face while pissing and spitting at the same time.
There are some movies, however, that I would like to see a sequel to; Rounders, for instance, would make any interesting sequel. How does Mike do in Vegas, How and When does Worm show up there to fuck things up, How does the explosion of poker's popularity affect Mike? It could be good and well done, but I'm afraid that, after viewing Tilt, the writers would cheese it up far too much and write what they think people want to see and not write what would actually be a good, believable, do-proper-justice-to-the-original sequel.
Touchy business. I really hope The Sandlot 2 doesn't suck completely.
Until Later.
Writer/Director David M. Evans, also writer/director of the original, is fucking with a classic here and I hope he doesn't spoil its reputation.
I don't want to have to say, "The Sandlot is great, but then there's the sequel...," much like you have to now with The NeverEnding story series. The first was great, the follow-ups, not so much.
It is encouraging that James Earl Jones is back, whose character I guess must be about 105 years old, at least. He is surely one of my favorite actors of all time and I'll look forward to seeing anything he's in, but this one will be judged in a different light.
There are rules to making sequels. You can't make the same movie but just with different characters or a different scenario. There are a plethora of sequels coming out this year, including Mad Max 4, Be Cool, Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, XXX: State of the Union, Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, and looking forward to 2006 and 2007, we have Die Hard 4.0 and The Bourne Ultimatum coming our way.
I'm not a huge sequel fan. They are very difficult to pull off. I think Ocean's 12 did a good job because it didn't take itself too seriously. The Bourne Supremacy was a decent sequel as well, but in making a sequel, you are pretty much running up a steep hill loaded with land mines, blindfolded, wearing shackles around your ankles and the wind in your face while pissing and spitting at the same time.
There are some movies, however, that I would like to see a sequel to; Rounders, for instance, would make any interesting sequel. How does Mike do in Vegas, How and When does Worm show up there to fuck things up, How does the explosion of poker's popularity affect Mike? It could be good and well done, but I'm afraid that, after viewing Tilt, the writers would cheese it up far too much and write what they think people want to see and not write what would actually be a good, believable, do-proper-justice-to-the-original sequel.
Touchy business. I really hope The Sandlot 2 doesn't suck completely.
Until Later.
