"I just don't get it, man."
There's a sentence I seem to say more and more as the world turns and my hair grays. Such statements are a constant reminder to me that I am on the fast-track to crotchety old grandpa-ness, doomed to patrol the confines of my browning, sickly front lawn with a garden hose or a shotgun full of rock salt, guarding against the errant toddler or teenage miscreant. I can see it now: Dan Silver seated in an ass-shaped depression (my own) in my favorite, decrepit Lay-Z-Boy mere inches from the screen of an aging television with speakers that scream out the dialogue from an infomercial about a juicer or Murder She Wrote DVD collection.
Furthermore, I accept that some things aren't going to make sense to those around me when I am a senior. I will be content to listen to my brutal doom metal CDs and watch zombie porn while the youths around me thumb their noses at my pop-cultural ignorance. My many tattoos will be so quaint in comparison to the bioluminescent, shape-shifting nanites implanted under the skin of my grandchildren, which every fifteen seconds will flash some sort of soda pop or smart drink add generating walking around money in addition to intricate, glowing designs. My seemingly classic motorcycle will be viewed as nothing but an earth-destroying albatross or a rolling, slow, gravity-stricken deathtrap.
Truthfully, I'm fine with all his. I have no problem growing old. As a matter of fact, I'm looking forward to slowing down a bit one day. I'm even somewhat excited about being stoked to be regular; there's nowhere to go but up from such a lowly set bar.
But, guess what: I'm still only twenty-eight and there is a giant, steaming crap about to fall down from the bowels of Hollywood onto the faces of young and old humanity alike.
It is called: Speed Racer.
Yes. Speed Racer. As in that horrible cartoon you probably suffered through as a kid while waiting for something that didn't totally suck to come on next. You know the show. Trust me. It was about a homosexual racecar driver who... well... competed in car races -- against the same guy -- over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. And there was a monkey and a kid who liked to hide in the racecar's trunk. That's was the whole plot.
No. You're right. Racecars don't usually have trunks.
I'll let this horrid preview do the talking for me. (This is not a movie review. No more needs to be said.)
Anyhow, Speed Racer, the forthcoming major motion picture, was produced and directed by the Wachowski brothers. You remember them; they made those three movies about Keanu Reeves being the sole hope for humanity. These filmmakers, who clearly have a firm grasp on reality as indicated by their casting choices, have felt the need to engage in the grand Hollywood tradition of rehashing TV shows that should have stayed long-buried. A brief list: Bewitched; The Dukes of Hazard; Josie and the Pussycats; The Beverly Hillbillies; SWAT; Fat Albert; Inspector Gadget; Wild, Wild West; Scooby Doo.
There's really only one way to stop this, I think. At least, there's only one way to stop this that doesn't involve mass-murder: find a TV show to make into a movie that is so horrible, so mind-numbingly innocuous that it points out the utter and complete blockheadedness that is the practice of flipping dim-witted TV shows into flicks. Brilliant, huh?
I'm way ahead of you.
Go on. Give it a click. You know you want to.
"You think you can drive a car and change the world! It doesn't work like that!"
So lame. |
