Simple Tricks and Nonsense

News today that a "contemporized adaptation" of the Arnold Schwarzenegger-on-Mars flick Total Recall is in the works. Never mind the question of whether the world is clamoring for yet another version of yet another story that's already been told, or whether this particular story might benefit from being told again.* No, the thing that bugs me here is this obnoxious piece of jargon, "contemporized adaptation." That, my friends, sounds to me like a marketing department trying to find some clever new way of saying "remake" without using the prefix "re-." Because, I suppose, market research indicates that words beginning with "re-" too clearly state the obvious. "Reimagining," "relaunch," "reboot" -- they all stink of a trip back to the same well, don't they? So instead of using one of those words, dripping with all the negative connotations of creative bankruptcy, somebody sat around a conference table for hours to come up with this all-new term for the same old crap.

I can just imagine the pitch meeting for Total Recall, Take Two: A guy in a 5,000-dollar suit listens for a minute, then says with a slight, vaguely reptilian grin, "Wait a minute, this is just another bloody remake, right? We've done dozens of those in the last decade, why should I greenlight another one? Can't you give me something original?" And he's answered with, "No, no, it's not a remake... it's a contemporized adaptation." And then, since Studio Suits are so easily dazzled by multisyllabic words, the first guy nods and says, "Oh, well, then, that sounds swell. Here's a blank check."

Guys, let me tell you something: it doesn't matter how you say it. It doesn't matter how you justify it. The fact is, you're out of ideas. You're lazy, you're overly cautious, and you care more about extending brands than telling stories. And every one of these "contemporized adaptations" you keep cranking out just further proves my point. You know what? At this point, just remake it all, every movie from the last 50 years, and the sooner the better, because then maybe when it's all been done over with sparkly CG effects and processed into murky 3D for maximum gimmick-appeal, we can get back to actually, you know, making movies, the kind you don't have to make up words to describe.

Remakes. Grrr.

* For the record, I'm not really that big a fan of Total Recall. In fact, I outright loathed it when it was first released back in my old working-at-the-multiplex days. I don't much enjoy "mind-f**k" movies anyhow, the ones that want to leave you guessing about what's really happening to the characters and what's only in their heads, and Recall was a pretty clumsy example of that genre. It was also ridiculously, cartoonishly violent (or so it seemed to me at the time; I've since seen worse), and it was just plain stupid in a lot of places. I could buy the alien instant-atmosphere-making machine, but Arnold and Rachel Ticotin looking completely unscathed in the final scene after having their eyes bugged four inches out of their skulls and then getting explosively recompressed? Uh, no. And don't tell me this is proof that the whole movie was Arnold's dream/memory implant. I already told you, I don't like that mind-f**k crap. (I also dislike novels with unreliable narrators; I don't like the feeling of some writer somewhere having a laugh at my expense.)

The biggest problem with Recall, though, is that it has no third act. Following a reasonably good set-up and middle portion, the writers obviously couldn't figure out how to end it, so they just have Arnold shoot a bunch of people. Even though I hate remakes on general terms, you can actually make a pretty good argument in favor of remaking this one, assuming someone has come up with a solution to the problem of the third act. But of course, I don't believe anyone has. Because most screenplays these days aren't even as good as the dumb popcorn movies of the late '80s and early '90s.

And you know, now that I think about it, my attitude toward Total Recall has softened a lot in the last 20 years. Memories of it are bound up with memories of a good time in my life. And, as stupid as it was, it was still more entertaining than something like The Dark Knight. I'm really tired of all the Darkness with a capital D being sold as artistic significance in movies these days...

Posted by at 11:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

You gotta love the summer season around the old ad agency.

You see, my Corporate Overlords provide us downtrodden minions with a generous boon called "summer Fridays," i.e., four Fridays off with pay, which you can take at your own discretion, anytime between Memorial Day and Labor Day, workflow allowing. These days don't count against your vacation time, either; they're essentially bonus holidays. This particular perk is, no surprise, a very popular institution, but it tends to generate some strange side-effects for those of us who are left at work while everyone else is off, um, summer Fridaying.

For one thing, the office is eerily quiet, because roughly one-third to one-half of the 400-some-odd staffers are out. The building gets pretty chilly, too, without the extra bodies and running computers to warm the place up, and as the day wears on and the daylight outside begins to soften with the onset of evening, the basement cube-farm of this century-old brick pile starts to feel like a set piece from the latest zombie-apocalypse movie.

Then there are toddlers and pets who occasionally make appearances because their folks have to work and are unable to make other arrangements. This can happen anytime, of course, but it seems to happen more in the summer, and especially on summer Fridays, I guess because there are fewer management types around to care. These special guest stars aren't really a problem, but they have a tendency to wander off on their own, lured by the irresistible mysteries of a post-zombie-apocalypse cube farm. Which means that while I'm sitting here typing this, I can see a tiny Boston terrier/pug mix named after a Cimmerian deity wandering around at the edges of my peripheral vision.

And then of course there are the mental effects caused by the oppressive isolation and loneliness of this depopulated environment. Basically, summer Fridays make those poor devils who are left behind quite insane. A harsh accusation I know, but let me provide my evidence: You occasionally hear maniacal laughter echoing from the other side of the basement. You see random notes in the break room offering free cupcakes, but there is no evidence that a cupcake has even passed within sensor-range of that room for weeks. Assistant creative directors (the actual creative directors are always out of the office on Fridays, both summer and otherwise) putt golf balls down the aisles between the cubicles. And some account supervisors think that a 15,000-word document delivered to proofreading at 4 PM can be finished by 6, or "quitting time," as we like to call it. Fifteen thousand words, for you lay-people who don't deal in such things for a living is about 50 pages. Fifty brand-new, error-ridden pages that have never been seen by an editorial eye, and they want it in only two hours...

I just heard another peal of maniacal laughter.

Oh, wait... that was me.

And I just scared the dog away. Sorry, little guy...

Posted by at 3:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

You remember the character Cyclops in the X-Men comics and movies, how if you take off his magic sunglasses, his "optic blast" superpower sprays everywhere, uncontrollable, until he shuts his eyes? That's what it's like to be a professional proofreader sometimes; you just can't help but see the errors people make when they write, even when you're not on the clock and you're just out and about in the real world, trying to mind your own business. The really annoying thing is that you tend to see the same damn errors over and over again, too. Stuff that really isn't that hard but which, for some reason, consistently trips up otherwise intelligent and well-spoken people.

Case in point (you knew I had one, didn't you?): I was just perusing some reader comments over at the Tribune web site and I see that someone thinks that "Draper [City] has a huge cross to bare." (Italics mine.) So... that would be an undressed cross? Perhaps you mean one that hasn't been varnished or painted? Or perhaps the expression you're really searching for is "cross to bear."

It's very simple, people: "bare" means naked. You bare your body, you bare your soul. "Bear" means "to support, carry, or endure." You bear your load (which is what that old cliche about cross-bearing is getting at), you bear children, you grin and bear it. See how easy? Sheesh...

Posted by at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Here's another of those trivial things that no one else seems to mind, but which drive me certifiably bats: people writing the word "loose" when they really mean "lose."

I don't know if this is just a Utah thing, or if people from other parts of the country do it, too, but it certainly seems to be endemic in these parts. I see it all over the place: in comments on the Salt Lake Tribune's web site (which is actually what inspired this post today), in e-mails from friends (no offense, kids), and in letters and diaries written years ago by dead relatives. I could understand it if folks were simply spelling the word the way it sounded when spoken, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Utahns pronounce "lose" with the proper "z" sound (i.e., "looz" ) in conversation, but when they write it down, they frequently use "loose" (i.e., "looce"), and I gotta tell you, as somebody who spends all day correcting written mistakes for a living, it's maddening.

So, let's have a little remedial lesson, shall we? "Lose" is a verb, as in "to lose," as in "I hope the Utah Jazz don't lose the big game." (Don't worry, they probably will.) "Loose," on the other hand, is an adjective, a descriptor of something else, as in "That screw is loose," or "She's a loose woman." Now, what's so tough about that?

Posted by at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

So, I'm sitting here watching the AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time (10th Anniversary Edition) special, and I just saw a commercial for Blade Runner: The Final Cut, coming soon on DVD and (according to this commercial) to theaters this fall. Leaving aside my conviction that acknowledged classics shouldn't be revised or messed with (and also that Ridley Scott is horribly misguided in his efforts to convince us that Deckard is a replicant), it was pretty exciting to see this film being advertised again. However, something about the ad really grated on me: the obligatory slogan, "The One That Started It All."

I say "obligatory" because it seems these days that every single film that has inspired sequels or imitators uses it; for example, it popped up again recently when the original Shrek was aired on TV a few weeks back. I hate this slogan. It's hackneyed and virtually meaningless. What the hell is "it" anyway? "It" is never defined, and there are apparently lots of different "its" out there, since Shrek's "it" most likely is not Blade Runner's "it" (although it'd be interesting if it was -- imagine a dystopian future-noir fairy tale...). Really what "it" is, is lazy marketing. It's a simple, cliche'd fix for a copywriter who's staring down a deadline and doesn't have the slightest original thought in his head about the movie in question. As with all the other stuff that bugs me, this slogan will be forbidden when I become the Unquestioned Ruler of the Universe.

That is all. Back to the AFI list now...

Posted by at 8:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In another example of what's likely to become an ongoing feature here at Simple Tricks, allow me to gripe about yet another trivial thing that's been annoying me for some time and has finally built to critical mass: my local newspaper's use of the term "tot" to describe young children.

Continue reading "Something That Bugs Me: The Word "Tot"" »

Posted by at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

FYI to anyone reading this: the film's title is Blade Runner, not Bladerunner. I see this mistake made all over the place (most recently here) and it grates on my nerves like stainless-steel fingernails on a chalkboard.

Two words, people. Two.

That is all.

Posted by at 4:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)