The Naked Gun: What 4? -- The Rhythm of Evil.

Did you like The Naked Gun? You know, starring Leslie Neilson back when he was funny. I enjoyed the first one (loved Airplane! and Police Squad) but thought the sequels headed quickly downhill. Mind you they all had some funny bits and some highly quotable lines.

Now a Paramount employee gave Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere a copy of the script for The Naked Gun: What 4? - The Rhythm of Evil.

This is some of what he had to say about it

What makes funny funny? There's no explaining the how and why (and if you do you kill the joke), but I know it when I read it. And this script, penned by veteran sardonic-comedy guy Alan Spencer (Sledge Hammer, Hexed), made me laugh. It's funny in a dry, smart, surreal-toxic sexual way. But then I'm from Mars so what do I know?

On top of which the films that I direct in my head when I'm reading stuff like this are always underplayed in an Ingmar Bergman-esque way, and the tendency of many (if not most) professional comedy directors is to broaden and underline so the least sophisticated dolts in Mumbai will get the joke. But the best stupid comedies are never aimed low -- they're written and directed by smart guys, and played as straight as Hamlet and aimed at jazz musicians and corporate CEOs and people who donate foundation money. Because once you start winking at the audience, you're dead.

The three lead cop characters in Naked Gun: What 4? are Det. Vince Conklin ("Look, I represent the new America, the average person on the street desperate for change... like pennies, nickles, dimes"), Police Commissioner Roy McGlade (flip, blunt, crusty but benign) and Lt. Erica Litvak (30s, no-nonsense, a looker). Nielsen's Lt. Frank Drebin has been put out to pasture, of course -- living in Florida, golfing -- so it's wide open for whatever.

All I know is that "it's ugly out there....like a boil on the buttock of a Sumo wrestler suffering from excema." That's a throwaway line from page four, delivered by a minor character.

How do you like them apples?

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Back to the Future Special Edition Blu-Ray news - Billy Zane digs it

Universal Home Entertainment has announced that they will be re-releasing the Back to the Future films on DVD in February. All three films have been digitally restored and blu-rayerized (remastered in High Definition), but the big news is that the original film, Back to the Future, will be released as a two-disc special edition. The new bonus disc will include all the footage from Back to the Future… The Ride, including the lobby que loop, the pre-show, and the entire ride itself. The new collectors edition will also feature the infamous Back to the Future Part II preview special hosted by Leslie Nielsen which orginally aired November 17, 1989 on NBC, and a new documentary called Looking Back to the Future. The two sequels have no new extras. All three discs will be going for $19.98 and be out on 10th February, 2009.

Who out there will be picking up the special edition?

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Forbidden Planet to be remade. ID better be good (See what I did there?)

Following the recent Hollywood trend to take a classic and remake it for today's audience (The Day the Earth Stood Still) it looks as if Forbidden Planet is next.
Warner Bros have hired J. Michael Straczynski to write the remake of Forbidden Planet. The original saw a group of Earth scientists who are sent some 17 light years away to investigate what happened to a colony of settlers on Altair-4. They find a man with a secret and his daughter who somehow survived a hideous monster attack on their planet.

Loosely based on William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the movie was nominated for best special effects Oscar, and was noted for its groundbreaking use of an all-electronic score, and the first appearances of Robby the Robot and the C-57D starship. The movie’s poster was listed as the fifth best Movie Poster ever created by Premiere Magazine.

Forbidden Planet is one of my all time favourite films. It just works so well for so many reasons - great effects, brilliant story, Robby the Robot, Leslie Nielson with brown hair, Walter Pidgeon being all frosty and mad scientist as Dr Morbius, Anne Francis playing with tigers, Creatures from the ID, the vast underground city of the Krells, and the bit where you see the invisible beastie's footsteps in the sand as it approaches the ship while the electro theromin music works its magic. It is just excellent. Go watch it. Go now. Do it.

When I watched it with my son (he was 8 at the time) he explained to me how, because the spacemen were travelling at the speed of light, time would move slower for them than it would for the people on Earth. Quite a big concept for an 8 year old and it made me proud. He also loved the film and thought Robby was cool.

However, I'm not sure if this film should be remade. There is just no need and I'm not sure if a remake could add anything new to the mix. Although if you look at it as a work based on Shakespeare then a remake is not that unusual as the Bard's tales have been doing the rounds in all forms forever. What do you think of the news?

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