the karate kid Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Those familiar with my wild, suburban antics behind the scenes of Cinematical will know that I have a small, unhealthy obsession with The Karate Kid. Perhaps it's because the film first hit theaters right as I was heading toward that childhood sweet spot where films stick to your heart and soul and wind up growing up a part of you. Or maybe it's because I've always connected with Daniel LaRusso since, as teenagers, we were both wimpy skinny kids with thick New York/New Jersey accents who, for one reason or another, were forced to deal with a group full of a**holes during our high school years.

Either way, it's an awesome movie -- and whenever Halloween comes around, I always make my lady crazy by insisting that I must were Daniel's shower costume to whatever lame Halloween party she decides to drag me to. Unfortunately, I've never worn it, though one year I will -- but that's totally not stopping my fellow Karate Kid nuts from doing the right thing in 2009 and purchasing one of those shower costumes to wear to your own Halloween parties.

You can pick one up right now on Amazon for $69, or you can follow this dude's instructions and make your own. Alternatively, if you want to dress as an evil skeleton like those damn Cobra Kai losers, you can also purchase that costume on Amazon as well (for $49). Trust me, you wear that shower costume this year and you'll definitely be the best around. Go for it!

Is it just me, or are there any other children of the '80s out there experiencing a strange case of Déjà Vu right about now? As we speak, those brilliant Hollywood innovators are currently churning out remakes and re-imaginings for films like Footloose, The Karate Kid and Red Dawn, while old TV shows like The A-Team are also feeling the big-screen love. And because it's our job to sicken (or, heck, excite?) you on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, we've brought with us some bodacious images from The A-Team and The Karate Kid, both of which are now right smack in the middle of production and due out next year.

We'll begin with the first image from off the set of The A-Team (courtesy of Splash News, see above), and, naturally, it's a shot of the new A-Team van, which, thankfully, greatly resembles the old A-Team van. Growing up I had a toy version of the A-Team van (with its awesome sliding side door), but lost it at some point -- so I'm actually looking forward to a potential A-Team van toy comeback, if only to watch my kid play with (and enjoy) something that's so totally mid-80s.

This new version of The A-Team is due in theaters on June 11, 2010, and stars Liam Neeson as John "Hannibal" Smith, , Sharlto Copley as Capt. "Howling Mad" Murdock, Bradley Cooper as Lt. Templeton "Faceman" Peck, and Quinton "Rampage" Jackson as Sgt. "B.A." Baracus. Joe Carnahan (Smokin' Aces) directs, and Jessica Biel also stars as a general/love interest on the hunt for the renegade team, while Entertainment Weekly tells us that Patrick Wilson has joined the cast as a CIA operative.

Images and art from The Karate Kid remake after the jump.

When I kicked off the Our Favorite Montages series late last month, I originally did so with the intention of plugging this particular montage first because a) it's quite possibly my most favorite montage of all time, and b) it's tremendously awesome and makes you want to learn karate. However, for some reason that day I just couldn't find a nice, clean embeddable version of it online -- but that all changed when a new online search led me to a version of the montage on MySpace, and, well, I managed to embed it after the jump.

Most of my favorite movie montages come equipped with a memorable song, and there's no way in Reseda that one can listen to Joe Esposito's You're the Best Around without immediately thinking about this classic montage from The Karate Kid. For the entire movie we're with Daniel as he's training to take on those evil Cobra Kai morons in the All Valley Karate Championship. Unfortunately, Johnny, Bobby, Tommy and Jimmy (seriously, was it that hard to come up with some more creative names for this lot?) never knew what hit them. I love this montage because, here, Maccio mastered the art of kicking ass while still looking completely scared out of his mind. Meanwhile, it's got Elisabeth Shue in her prime when she was the go-to movie girlfriend, and who doesn't love the random people shouting "Yeah Daniel, you're the best!" from the audience? And what's up with that big, overweight Cobra Kai dude? Where was he in the Halloween bike chase scene?

Anyway, watch the montage after the jump.

Has this thought ever crossed your mind: 'Boy, The Godfather was awesome. But it needs to be remade as a gangster saga in the hip hop world.' Or: 'The Shawshank Redemption was great, but I want a prequel, with Zac Efron as the Tim Robbins dude in college!' Or: 'Citizen Kane had too much talking -- and no color! I thought my TV was broken. I hope they reboot it with Will Smith as a rich guy who creates a new social networking site, marries a supermodel, and flies to the Moon!'

Has there ever been remake / reboot news that you've warmly greeted? We've groaned about / bitched about a ton of remakes in various stages of development. Just within the last month, we've written about Short Circuit, Alien, Total Recall, The Karate Kid, Scream, Barbarella, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Flight of the Navigator, Footloose, Mona Lisa, The Mechanic, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Also looming out there: Predator, Commando, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Warriors, Tell No One, and District B13, among many others. Next week, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 hits theaters, and later this year Fame, Night of the Demons, A Christmas Carol, The Wolfman, and Brothers will endeavor to obliterate all memory of their original inspirations.

As Elvis Costello once sang, "I used to be disgusted and now I try to be amused." Of all these, I'm least looking forward to Total Recall, but most of these numb me with disinterest. How about you? Can you pick out one that is your absolute, most fury-inducing, 'how dare they' remake / reboot?

In Drillbit Taylor (which opens tomorrow), three kids hire a low-budget bodyguard (Owen Wilson) to help protect them from the school's bully. This got us thinking: What are some of the great on-screen bullies? Those kids you just love to root against because they're written extremely well, offer up top-notch performances and/or remind you of someone from your past. A bully is different from your average movie villain -- they don't tend to carry lethal weapons, or run with a group of deadly terrorists. These are just regular kids with a little too much power thrown their way. Your run-of-the-mill Hollywood bully usually hangs with a group of about two of three of the same sex; guys or girls who don't have many lines, and serve only to make the main bully appear tougher.

Ideally, a great movie bully should have one or more of the following: 1) At least three classic lines. 2) A memorable downfall. 3) Hottie girlfriend or boyfriend. 4.) A name that just says it all.

We put our heads together and came up with seven of the greatest bullies on film. Check them out after the jump ...

With Balls of Fury, I thought we were going to go in a new direction with sports movies -- taking that Karate Kid feel and putting it into another alternative sports form. Not quite. Christopher Campbell just told you about Will Smith re-creating the famous movie for his son, Jaden, to star in. (My pitch: That karate lady Hilary Swank comes to teach the ways to the young Smith! Yeah, I'm not taking the whole project seriously.) Now we're getting another one, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Summit Entertainment has grabbed Sensei, a comedy spec from David Caspe. Either that whole collective conscious thing is working in full force, or there's a lot of sneaky idea snooping going on.

It might have all started a few years ago, when stuntwoman/actress Diana Lee Inosanto had trouble shooting her freshman debut, the indie film The Sensei, which is supposed to come out this year. The Columbine school district wouldn't let her film on location because scenes of bullying would hurt their healing process. It's about a gay kid who learns martial arts to defend himself when the AIDS crisis inspires kids to beat on him. Did the others hear about this flick and then decide to saccharine it up a bit?

This comedic Sensei, without the "The" is much lighter -- it's about "an overweight former karate champion who agrees to a nationally televised rematch with his nemesis to settle a score the two have kept since an historic 1984 showdown." That just so happens to be the year The Karate Kid came out, so man, I would definitely go to see this if they got Ralph Macchio to gain and lose a lot of weight to have a rematch against William Zabka, even if they're different characters. That would be excellent. What do you think?

I guess it's more than 20 years old -- so, The Karate Kid can be remade fair and square. All of us who have fond memories of Mr. Miyagi and fond hatred of William Zabka can just forget it. Honestly, I don't know why anybody is even writing about that old movie anymore. It's dated, it's cheesy, it's done. Move on. To the redo, that is. According to IGN, Sony is set to revamp it's "classic" with help from Will Smith, who will produce through his company, Overbook Entertainment. Jerry Weintraub, who produced the original, is also reportedly on board for this one. As for the star? That will be little Jaden Smith, Will's 9-year-old son and co-star in The Pursuit of Happyness. I guess this time Daniel will really be needing his mom to drive him on that date.

Okay, so I am somewhat joking above with all the fairness talk and implications that The Karate Kid is overrated. But I still anticipate a lot of protest, so I figured I'd kick off with a bit of the Devil's Advocate. Seriously, though, I do think there's no problem with this idea. Keep in mind they already pretty much did this once. It was called The Next Karate Kid. Oh, but it had Mr. Miyagi in it, you may whine, and he can't return for another installment, because he's no longer with us. Well, there are some who think the real Miyagi wasn't even in The Next Karate Kid, so there's that. So, here's how it goes in my mind: Jaden is not Daniel, there's nobody named Johnny (well, maybe Zabka could have a kid and he could be Johnny, Jr.) and Miyagi is replaced by a relative -- did he have a nephew in KKII? I don't remember. Who cares, let's make one up. Since this thing is currently out to writers, I hope they read this and take my idea. It's an obvious enough one that I won't sue. I swear.

After fighting for his life in an Asian death pit, The Karate Kid, Part III deliberately lowers the stakes of the franchise and has Daniel LaRusso returning home to Receda, to be confronted by ... well, John Kreese again. Sort of. Kreese is still not over being humiliated by LaRusso at the All Valley, which actually makes sense when you consider that in Karate Kid time, the lapse between the first film and third film is only a few weeks. Having been financially ruined by the sudden departure of his Cobra Kai students, Kreese now reaches out to a man who may be the most ridiculous villain in the history of movies, corporate eco-terrorist and Cobra Kai financier Terry Silver, played by Thomas Ian Griffith. A despondent Kreese shows up on the doorstep of Silver's enormous mansion, and is welcomed with open arms. As they are talking, Silver's manservant interrupts with some routine papers. "Ten years ago nuclear was the preferred waste, you could dump it anywhere," Silver nostalgically sighs as he signs. "Now everybody's a detective!"

Because of some Vietnam debt he owes Kreese, Silver agrees to put his entire criminal empire on hold so that he can make enacting Kreese's revenge his only business -- he actually tells his secretary "for the next few weeks, my business is strictly revenge," which causes no reaction in her whatsoever. He puts Kreese on a plane to Tahiti and then sets about putting into action an elaborate two-part plan. The first part involves hiring a vicious karate champion named Mike Barnes (Sean Kanan) to come to Receda and harass LaRusso into competing in the next All Valley tournament. For the second part, Silver will insert himself into LaRusso's life as a false Miyagi. The idea is that Daniel will become reliant on his teaching methods instead of Miyagi's, and Silver will be able to poison the champion's pure heart by teaching him dirty Cobra Kai tricks. By the time the tournament rolls around, LaRusso will be so screwed up in the head and poorly prepared that Barnes will cream him, and Kreese's revenge against this 17 year-old kid will be complete. Awesome.