ScaryMovie Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Are you one of the remaining fans who contributed to the $90-million haul Scary Movie 4 brought in at the box office? If so, I hope that series star Anna Faris wasn't what drew you to the horror-spoof shenanigans, because common sense says that she's likely not sticking around for the newly announced Scary Movie 5. Cinema Blend has it on good authority that the Weinstein Company is gearing up for a fifth trip to the comedy well. Only this time around the objective appears to be orbiting Hollywood's favorite new buzzword: reboot.

Now rebooting a franchise that, by design, is a free-flow of unconnected, topical plot points from entry-to-entry means that the studio plans on getting rid of the one thing that unites all of the films together: Anna Faris as the delightfully vacant Cindy and Regina Hall as Cindy's amusingly verbose best friend Brenda. Personally I think that's a terrible idea, as Faris and Hall play so well off each other that they are, by far, the only good thing remaining about the series. But if the agenda is to reboot the franchise, then that means they've got to go.

From the business side of things it does make sense. More recognizable than Anna Faris is the Scary Movie brand name, so Joe and Jane Moviegoer are not going to be up in arms at the thought of a Cindy-less romp around familiar gags involving various bodily functions and people hitting their head on things over and over and over. All most will care about is seeing a new Scary Movie popping up in their local theater listings for the weekend, so the Weinsteins are fiscally wise to cut out the one element of the film that's going to have a fixed price tag upfront. Considering Scary Movie 5 is bound to make similar returns with another cute final gal in its lead, the currently hurting studio doesn't have much incentive to keep her around.

In the wake of White Chicks and Little Man, the Wayans Brothers return to grace the world with the presence of next February's Dance Flick, which lampoons last February's Step Up 2: The Streets, not to mention Save the Last Dance, You Got Served, How She Move, maybe Center Stage, possibly Robert Altman's The Company, and probably plenty of stuff that isn't related to actual dance flicks.

Having watched the initial Scary Movie last week for the first time since my formative teen years, their spoof efforts there still aren't on par with SM3 (which they didn't do), but remain above SM2 (which they did do). In short: humor that's dated and crude is right up their alley (I'm frankly impressed they remembered to work Flashdance in), and besides, you saw that break-dancing newborn, right? Call up Calista Flockhart, and count me out already.

Starring the usually amusing Amy Sedaris and the often less so Wayans clan, Dance Flick serves the last laugh to the streets on February 6, 2009.

Despite having starred in a series of spoofs that have together raked in over $400 million on the domestic front, it still doesn't feel like Anna Faris is quite the household name she deserves to be. All dollar signs aside, this comedienne has that endearing mix of whip-smart comic timing, goofy mugging, general hotness (what?), and a sense of self-awareness in even her ditziest roles. Time will only tell if tomorrow's release of The House Bunny will formally launch her into the ranks of, say, Reese Witherspoon after Legally Blonde, but even if she doesn't, here's at least seven reasons why she'll always be our funny bunny.

1. Cindy Campbell in Scary Movie 3 (2003)

Say what you will about this parody franchise, but it's been a minor blessing that Faris keeps coming back to ground these puppies from evaporating into pure irrelevance... although it's pure irrelevance that keeps me coming back to this one in particular. Call it a guilty pleasure if you must, but there are glorious non sequiturs a-plenty that help me cope with the slapdash plot and already dated pop culture riffs (oh, right, Simon Cowell, he's that guy...). Naturally, not the least of the credit goes to Faris, who, as the aloof reporter/single mom, is just as inept at either job as we'd like her to be.

Each week, The Exhibitionist comments on the latest news, trends and innovations related to the theater industry, or it discusses long-continuing problems with and complaints against cinemas in general, or it simply relates a specific moviegoing experience of yours truly. But rarely does this column get into the subject of actual movies. Well, seeing as there's not much new in the industry this week, and seeing as I'm fortunately not being dragged to see Sex and the City and therefore have no experience to relate about being a sole male in an auditorium packed with women, I figure this is a perfect time to bring up actual movies. Not just any movies, though: I'm presently only interested in discussing movies about, set in or prominently featuring movie theaters.

The earliest movie that I'm familiar with that significantly involves a theater is Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr. The silent comedian plays a projectionist who falls asleep on the job then has a dream in which he literally climbs through the movie screen and into a detective film. A similar idea of breaking the boundary between auditorium and screen is used in Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo and in John McTiernan's The Last Action Hero, both of which involve a movie character who manages to leave his respective film within the film. But nothing tops Keaton's screen-entering stunt, which utilizes special effects that still astonish more than 80 years later.

One of the scenes in Forgetting Sarah Marshall that people will be talking about over the virtual water cooler next week is the one that involves Jason Segel doing full frontal nudity. Yes, he lets it all hang out, and what's admirable is that he does it purely for the sake of a joke. That takes courage! That takes guts! That takes ... well, you know.

This isn't the first film to use nudity for laughs, of course. Comical naughty bits have a rich history in Hollywood. Here are seven movies with hilarious nudity.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
What's funnier than a naked dude? A naked FAT dude. And what's funnier than a naked fat dude? A naked fat dude wrestling a naked skinny dude in a hotel room, and a hotel hallway, and a hotel elevator, etc., etc.

As Scott pointed out in his review, you need not fear that this week's Superhero Movie is another brainchild of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, whose satanic perversions of the parody genre -- Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans -- have been terrorizing unsuspecting audiences every year since 2006. Superhero Movie was actually directed by Craig Mazin, a protégé of the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker dream team responsible for Airplane! and The Naked Gun, and produced by David Zucker himself. But it, too, is plagued -- albeit to a much lesser degree -- by what's turning out to be the problem with the entire modern generation of spoofs going back to Scary Movie: relentless pop culture specificity.

The basest incarnations of this, of course, are the Friedberg-Seltzer monstrosities, which may be worthless as comedies but which could prove valuable to historians because they indicate precisely what dominated the American zeitgeist in the few months before their release. It's too generous to call these films' vulgar spasms "jokes," but to the extent that's what they are, they depend entirely on either audience members' awareness of US Weekly-type factoids such as Britney Spears' shaving her head or their recall of particular scenes and characters in recent box-office hits. That's not to say that these kinds of jokes can't be funny -- the problem with Friedberg and Seltzer, as others have pointed out, is that they think throwing something current on the screen ("Look, Paris Hilton!") constitutes humor. But they do limit comedies' universal appeal and staying power.

I guess David Zucker wasn't satisfied with the quality of the superhero jokes in Jason Friedberg's Epic Movie, so he felt the need to make his own. Variety reports that Dimension films has finalized casting for their spoof flick, Superhero! Dimension had already cast Josh Bell (Drake and Josh), Sara Paxton (Aquamarine), Ryan Hansen (Veronica Mars) and Kevin Hart (All About Polly), but the latest additions are comedy vets. Variety reports that Naked Gun icon, Leslie Nielsen, Jeffrey Tambor (Arrested Development), Brent Spiner (Star Trek: TNG), and Marion Ross (that's right, Mrs. Cunningham herself) have all signed on for unnamed roles.

Back in 2006, while doing press for his other satirical masterpiece, Scary Movie 4, Zucker told JoBlo.com that, "Craig Mazin [SCARY MOVIE 4 writer] has written a script, and it's a...You know, we've identified about a dozen characteristics that are common to all these superhero movies, like Batman, Spider-Man, X-Men...and if you can get those common characteristics, there's a pretty good chance that the audience will share those references and you can poke fun at the cliches. So it's going to be pretty interesting." Mazin has also been signed to direct the film, and David Zucker and Robert K. Weiss will produce. Zucker and Weiss were the team behind Scary Movie 3 and 4, as well as some of the later films in the Naked Gun franchise. So it probably doesn't take much imagination to guess what the film will be about. If you have ever seen a Scary Movie, then you just switch the low-brow gags to a man in tights rather than wielding an ax. Superhero! is set for release on March 28th, 2008.

Hopefully we'll never again have to see Marlon Wayans' face on the body of a little person, or covered by a white-girl mask. If he and his brothers (Shawn and Keenan Ivory) want another franchise (they are still going with the Scary Movie series), they could possibly make one out of their next project. The Wayanses are turning their comic book Super Bad James Dynomite into a live-action feature film for Rogue Pictures with Marlon starring as the title role. Dynomite is a 1970s blaxploitation-era detective -- ala Shaft and Dolemite (which is apparently being remade) -- who has been in prison for the past 35 years, or so. When he's released in the present, he retains his 70s look, complete with exaggerated afro, and sets off to find the criminal who framed him.

The comic is full of adult material, so turning it into a franchise wouldn't be as easy as it has been for superhero titles. The Wayans brothers aren't reported as being interested in sequels, but I'm sure Rogue would love a franchise if the guys were down and if the first movie does good business. Of course, there are a few reasons why the movie might not be too successful. The most important of these reasons is that blaxploitation doesn't need another homage. Between the Shaft remake, Jackie Brown and the spy comedy Undercover Brother, we've seen enough tributes to and jokes on the genre recently to last us another 35 years. Plus, the Wayanses already covered the territory with the blaxploitation spoof I'm Gonna Git You Sucka. The bottom line, though, is that the original films are just too enjoyable by themselves to require any kind of hindsight rehash. If Dynomite is only a single shot film, Rogue should be fine. The studio also just bought another script from Marlon and Shawn, which was co-written by Xavier Cook and Mitchell Marchand (The Wayans Bros. television series).

I guess it is fair that people in the U.K. will get to see Hot Fuzz beginning Wednesday -- usually the Brits have to wait a few months behind us for new Hollywood releases. But being fair doesn't make me wish it weren't true. I am really, really looking forward to this movie, as are many of us. It doesn't help that I keep getting teased by more and more promotional materials. Now, Empire has a new internet-only trailer up. I don't want to spoil the trailer for you, but I will say that the trailer won't spoil the movie for you. And yet it tells you all you need to know about the film. Here's what you need to know about the trailer, though: it was personally edited by Hot Fuzz director Edgar Wright and it was scored by Robert Rodriguez (surprising, I know).

The only thing I'm getting worried about now is that the movie is being sold as -- and will actually be -- too much of a parody film. Shaun of the Dead was a comedic zombie movie more than a spoof of zombie movies, and I'd hope that Hot Fuzz could work more on its own than being an action counterpart to Scary Movie and others -- not that I could imagine it would be that humorless. The latest review, from the BBC, claims it isn't as good as Shaun but that it is hilarious and worth seeing more than once (it gets 4 stars, too). If your boyfriend or girlfriend loves Shaun of the Dead, spend the money and fly the two of you to England on Valentine's Day. Otherwise, try to wait with me until April 13.

Are you among the 14 people who actually paid money to see Date Movie? If so, at any point during that movie did you find yourself thinking "Wow, I really hope someone gives these filmmakers money to make another spoof movie!!"? Well, if so then you're an idiot. Because someone did. And now we have something to look forward to called Epic Movie.

Based on this retina-demolishing trailer, Epic Movie looks to be yet another endless collection of movie-related sketch comedy bits. Yeah, just like Date Movie, all four Scary Movie movies, and every Leslie Nielsen "comedy" post-1981. To be fair, writer/directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer spent a good deal of time on their Date Movie audio commentary apologizing for the lame jokes and atrocious filmmaking ... so let's just see if the guys tried a little harder this time out. Sad to say that based solely on the trailer, I'm not exactly holding my breath.

Epic Movie performers include Kal Penn, Fred Willard, Jennifer Coolidge and Crispin Glover as Willy Wonka. Limp-ass parody bits that'd get booed off the stage on free beer open-mike night include swipes at X-Men, Superman Returns, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Chronicles of Narnia, Nacho Libre, Snakes on a Plane ... Borat, and ... um, Paris Hilton. Witty, timely and truly "epic" stuff there, fellas. I can barely wait to see what Friedberg & Seltzer have cooked up for January 2008. After Scary Movie, Date Movie and Epic Movie, I can only assume the next one will be called Crap Movie.

For those who'd like to know when they should avoid the local multiplex as if it were infected with Insta-Deth Ebola, I'll tell you this: Epic Movie opens on January 27th. And if the thing's even half as wretched as the trailer (or, god help us, Date Movie), I think I may pen a strongly-worded letter to Fox and ask where I can get some of whatever they're obviously taking.