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 just wanted you to know that I tried really hard to work in a crack about Denise Richards being thrilled about this particular headline ... but I've never really enjoyed cheap shots all that much, so I'll just leave it at that. Bloody Disgusting is now reporting that Charlie Sheen has been hired by Twisted Pictures to star in their new untitled horror flick. It was last April when the news first hit that the duo behind the Saw franchise were hard at work on a new story to gross out audiences with.

This one will center on a happy couple whose child is kidnapped and then killed by a pedophile. Unsatisfied with the results of the court system, the two decide to kidnap their son's killer and exact a little revenge of their own. The film had originally been titled Tortured, which is pretty self-explanatory, but it looks like Mark Burg and Oren Koules might have dropped the title to avoid confusion with an upcoming crime thriller starring Laurence Fishburne.

Rob Lieberman has already been hired to direct Marek Posival's script. Liberman has mainly worked in TV but he has directed a few features, including Fire in The Sky back in 1993. Posival is a relative newcomer and this will officially be his first feature film. Now that Saw is hopefully wrapping up for good, it will be nice to see Twisted Pictures try something a little different -- with maybe the exception of the odd musical.

John Hughes is a major hero of mine. I can't overstate the impact his movies had on me growing up, and he is a major influence on and inspiration to me now. As I mentioned in my National Lampoon's Vacation post today, there simply wasn't a better writer of film comedy in the 1980s. As far as his "teenager movies" go, 1986's Ferris Bueller's Day Off might just be his masterpiece. So it is with much apprehension that I report the following news -- there may be a sequel on the way. A completed script is being shopped around Hollywood, and Steve Spears at Stuck in the 80s has read it. So why am I not more excited? The reclusive Mr. Hughes had nothing to do with it. It was written by an Arizona-based screenwriter named Rick Rapier.

Titled Ferris Bueller 2: Another Day Off, the proposed sequel takes place on the eve of Bueller's fortieth birthday. Spears, a major Hughes enthusiast, calls Rapier's script "a blast. I read it in a single afternoon and was impressed with the care Rapier took with the original story and characters. The story has the same feel, humor and pace as the 1986 movie, which should please hard-core Ferris fans." The storyline finds Ferris 20 years older and living off a hugely successful self-help career, a la Tony Robbins. His best friend Cameron (played in '86 by Alan Ruck) manages the business. Turning 40 shakes Ferris up, and he decides to take the day off, "sending Cameron, his business associates and family into a frenzy." In addition to Ferris and Cameron, most of the supporting characters are in the script. Sloane Peterson (played in '86 by Mia Sara) is now "a Hollywood star going through a rough marriage." Ferris' sister Jeannie (Jennifer Grey) is now married to the guy from the police station (Charlie Sheen). Rooney (Jeffrey Jones) doesn't work for the school anymore, but has devoted his life to getting revenge on Ferris (What's he going to do at this point, murder him?). Even Ben Stein's character is in there, now working at an airline.

Rapier wants all the original actors to return, and he wants John Hughes to direct. I think the odds of that happening are mighty slim. For starters, Hughes has never directed a script he didn't write, and I strongly doubt he'd start by helming some random dude's take on one of his most beloved characters. In addition, Hughes hasn't directed a film since 1991's Curly Sue (the only bad film the man directed). Nobody wants Hughes to return more than me, but if a Bueller sequel was to be his comeback film, wouldn't he write it himself? I've been hearing rumors of a Ferris sequel for years (along with talk of sequels for Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink...), and I had always heard Matthew Broderick was down for it -- if Hughes wrote and directed. So where does that leave Rapier's script? I sure hope we're not going to see some direct-to-video craptacular with Charlie Schlatter being pursued by Richard Riehle. Anybody remember this?

Twenty years have passed since 1987's Wall Street taught America that "Greed is good." The film won Michael Douglas a Best Actor Academy Award for his blistering performance as Gordon Gekko, a high-powered corporate raider. I re-watched Wall Street recently. It is definitely a product of the 1980's (ginormous cell phones, etc.) but still holds up, and has spawned a lot of imitators, like the very good Boiler Room. And now a sequel is on the way -- 20th Century Fox has just sealed a deal to bring the character of Gekko back to the big screen. At the end of Wall Street, Gordon Gekko had been busted with the help of his protege, played by Charlie Sheen. His fate was left up in the air, but the sequel confirms that he went to jail. The new film will take off with Gekko out of jail and "resuming his machinations on a global scale in the hedge-fund era." The title will be Money Never Sleeps -- which is one of Gekko's mottos.

Douglas is returning to the role and as for Gekko, he says "I don't think he's much different. He's just had more time to think about what to do." The new film's writer, Stephen Schiff (The Deep End of the Ocean, True Crime), says Gekko will be restyled and might just have an influence on big business fashion all over again -- "If you weren't wearing suspenders before Wall Street, you were certainly wearing them after." (I hate to contradict the man, but I've never worn suspenders in my life). Master of machismo Oliver Stone co-wrote and directed the original Wall Street, but will not be back for the sequel, despite having been begged for months by Douglas and Schiff. Schiff doesn't think Bud Fox, Charlie Sheen's character, will return either, and that surely rules out Martin Sheen as well. Remember that scene in Hot Shots! Part Deux where Martin and Charlie Sheen pass each other on the river, point, and yell "I loved you in Wall Street!" That was hilarious.

The celebrities, they are just like us. So many of us in the U.S. have been dealing with Thanksgiving plans this week -- which relatives should we invite? Jennifer Aniston decided to invite the parents of her ex, Brad Pitt, for Turkey Day. And of course this caused the same stir that it might if you did the same thing (with your ex's family, I mean, not Pitt's) -- allegedly Angelina Jolie was unhappy about this. (via Radar Online)

However, Aniston's invite may have freed up Pitt and Jolie's Thanksgiving plans -- they escaped to Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday, where they toured the city on a motorcycle, then had yummy Vietnamese food. How many of us have tried the same thing when our family plans have turned out to be disappointing or unrealistic? Maybe we should.

Despite the holiday, many celebrities were kind and thoughtful enough to keep on providing us with news. Michael Richards seemed to be working overtime to make the gossip rounds, as did Kelly Ripa, but other notable stars also helped:

Five years ago today, 19 men hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing two into each tower of New York's World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and, thanks to a group of brave folks who refused to let their plane cause even more damage to the Capital, the last went down in a Pennsylvania field. Five years ago today, the world as we knew it forever changed.

While there's been a slew of 9/11-related films since, it's only been in the last year that Hollywood has decided the time was right to begin churning out bigger flicks, with bigger budgets and bigger names. Paul Greengrass' United 93 came first, though its box office tally suffered -- perhaps, because we weren't ready yet. Most felt it was just too soon. Last month, Oliver Stone's World Trade Center debuted with higher numbers (to date, we're looking at around $67 million), though mutants, pirates and a man that flies proved more attractive to audiences.

Now, Charlie Sheen is reportedly involved in a 9/11-related film and even Oliver Stone feels the subject matter is so "huge," he'd like to do another film as well. Before United 93 hit theaters, I asked if you thought it was too soon. Seeing as both films have since been released, with more on the way, I'm wondering if you still feel the same way.

So, I ask you: Is it still too soon for 9/11 on the big screen? Or, after seeing how genuine and respectful both United 93 and World Trade Center were to victims, their families and our society, are we now ready to open our hearts and accept whatever Hollywood has in store for us next?

According to a story that originally ran in the New York Post last week, Charlie Sheen and Esai Morales are in talks to bring the real-life story of William Rodriguez to the big screen. Rodriguez was working as a janitor on 9/11 and had the only available master key to the WTC complex when the first plane struck. Thus, the 20-year veteran helped firefighters evacuate the north tower by traveling alongside them, unlocking doors and saving lives.

In an interesting twist to the Rodriguez story, the hero later turned around and slapped a lawsuit on President Bush claiming the Commander in Chief orchestrated the 9/11 attacks in order to justify wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Not surprisingly, the lawsuit was dismissed and will not be mentioned in the film. Also involved in the project is writer-director David Marconi, though I must stress that nothing here is official. Is it just me, or do you also think Hollywood should take a bit of a break from the 9/11 films? Ya know, we wouldn't want to cash in on a "hot topic," right?

[via Movie Blog]

Odds and ends from Monday:

• I don't know about you, but I sure was wondering which project David R. Ellis would choose to follow up Snakes on a Plane. Monkeys on an Escalator? Elephants on a Corporate Retreat? Nope. Nada. Zip. Variety announced that Ellis has been tapped to direct Asylum for Hyde Park Entertainment. Though no snakes are involved in this one, pic will center around a group of college freshman who learn their dorm used to be an insane asylum. Not for nothing, but my college dorm was full of nutjobs. However, something tells me the infamous "freshman fifteen" is the least these kids need to worry about.
• Ahh, there's nothing like taking a nice, relaxing cruise to help reignite your marriage. Well, that's unless you're part of a horror script that was just picked up by Touchstone Pictures. Brothers Noah and Alexi Hawley unloaded their script, Dead in the Water, which marks their first sale as a writing team. Pic will follow a couple who, while traveling on a cruise, become engulfed in some horrific nightmare after the ship picks up a mysterious man at sea.
• Are you one of those people who walk around quoting lines from Wall Street constantly in order to impress friends who wish you would just shut up already? Well, 20 years after the original film starring Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen hit the screen, comes word that a sequel is definitely in the works. According to Moviehole via "someone at FOX," Oliver Stone and Michael Douglas are currently writing the script, which would be set 20 years after the first. Story will pick up as Gordon Gecko is released from prison and will follow the sleaze as he attempts to adapt in a completely different world. Most likely, Sheen will not be back. But, knowing both Stone and Douglas are involved does make me feel somewhat good about it. You?

(Welcome to a new weekly feature at Cinematical, Guilty Pleasures, where our staff of writers will offer short pieces on the movies that they feel just that little bit ashamed about loving.)

I once, at a panel, heard San Francisco Chronicle writer Neva Chonin say one of the smartest things I've ever heard about pop culture: She was talking about music, and how the most amazing thing about it was that it could give you a different perception of time -- that when you heard a song you loved, it took you back to all the times you'd experienced it, and gave you a chance to experience time in a non-linear fashion. So it is with movies, and for me, Red Dawn. Red Dawn came out in 1984. I was 15; Reagan-era Cold War anxieties had me twitchy (or, rather, twitchier), and my membership in The Royal Canadian Air Cadets -- teen-age Boy Scouts with planes and the occasional trip to the rifle range -- gave me a social context of like-minded youth. There was a Cold War, but what if it went hot? What would that be like?

And then Red Dawn came out. Forget that to anyone with a shred of logic in their capacities, the film was laughable -- The Soviets would send crack paratroopers to capture the heartland? What resource were they hoping to seize, flatness? -- when you're 15, your critical faculties are, at best, minimally developed. Red Dawn had a bunch of every-kids -- Charlie Sheen, Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell and more -- dealing with the arrival of the Red Menace. The film had action; it had suspense; it had gritty (or, at least, gritty by the standards of a 15-year-old) questions of wartime justice and tactics. It had hissable villains, too -- swarthy, stoic Cubans (led by Ron 'Superfly' O'Neal, which I wouldn't fully appreciate for years) and pallid, vampire-like Russkie bastards. It was, in short, perfect.

Times have changed; politics have changed; most cruelly of all, Charlie Sheen has changed. And yet, when I stumble across Red Dawn on cable -- where it will live forever -- I'm drawn in magnetically, fighting and struggling alongside the Wolverines and Powers Boothe, hooked by a premise so iron-strong and idiotic that it shoves me over every plot hole, every logic fault and every snag in John Milus' dialogue. Watching Red Dawn in the here-and-now, my 'adult' mind may recoil, but my heart -- and that skinny, dorky 15-year old, terrified of Nuclear War -- is enraptured by the power of cheap drama and cheap heroics that, God help me, still work on some level. 

A good parody is hard to spin beyond the here and now. Take "Weird Al" Yankovic, for example. The pop-music jokester has put out 11 regular albums since 1983, when the accordian-playing nice guy's spoof of The Knack's "My Sharona" (titled "My Bologna" and recorded in the men's room of his college radio station) started his career as a musician, comedic icon and food fetishist when it blew up on The Dr. Demento Show. However, every hilarious and unforgettable cut like "Eat It", "Like A Surgeon" and "Smells Like Nirvana" that hit was matched by fade-away tracks like the New Kids jape "The White Stuff" (an ode to Oreos), the Rocky III goof "Theme From Rocky XIII (The Rye Or The Kaiser)" or the misjudgment "Taco Grande" (a riff on Latin rough-boy Gerardo's only hit, "Rico Suave"). The secret to a successful parody is complex, involving a careful balance of picking a song that is big enough, worthy of a good-natured dressing down and most important, funny. The same is true with movies, and the latest in the popular Scary Movie series is a great example of what can go right and wrong with such an attempt.