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Bad Ideas in Cinema: November 21, 2006
By: Jeff Schade
Week #1, November 17th, 2006
Welcome to the first installment of Bad Ideas in Cinema where we wrap up the latest and not so great ideas of Hollywood. With production budgets and advertising costs on the rise and ticket sales barely keeping pace, you would guess that Hollywood might in fact take the intelligent approach to movie making.  But, change is unfortunately not on the horizon and it appears that Hollywood will continue to run itself into the ground. Then again, without bad ideas, there wouldn’t be much place for this column to-go, would there?
Speaking of running itself into the ground, our first item today is an announcement from Dreamworks Animation that they are expecting not-so-cheery returns this quarter. Just in time for Christmas, the studio, which has produced such hits as Madagascar and Over the Hedge, has pinned the blame on the underperforming CGI/Claymation creation Flushed Away. Then again, whoever exactly came up with the idea to make a film about a rat being flushed down the toilet and give it a budget of a whopping $149 million was probably not the sharpest crayon in the box. Yeah.
And speaking of sharpest crayons in the box, one name that often comes to mind is Tom Cruise. The actor, recently shrouded in not only a great deal of secrecy which has been closely followed by ever present controversy, has announced that he and longtime producer-partner Paula Wagner will be taking over the reigns of the newly re-launched United Artists studio. The studio has secured, as their first production, the rights to Lions for Lambs, a multi-faceted narrative ala last year’s Syrianna and this year’s Oscar contender Babel. One can only wonder if Cruise will repeat more of his Oprah couch-jumping-antics during the film. Perhaps director and co-star Robert Redford and Meryl Streep can bring some credibility to the film. Hopefully the film will sans any of Cruise’s theatrics, though, given that his credibility has plummeted of late, I would expect nothing less of the actor. Its doubtful that second wife Katie Holmes will be able to do much to stop him either.  We could plead to him, do it for the kids…including new Cruise family member Suri, but I’m guessing that would be in vain as well.
And finally tonight we have the news that infamous German film maker Uwe Boll, director of critical and box-office duds Alone in the Dark, BloodRayne and House of the Dead has sunk to a new low – even for him. Apparently, at least if early screening reviews are to be believed, the first five minutes of the film is nothing but graphic animal cruelty. And no, we aren’t talking about pretend animals or CGI-effects, no, apparently the grisly scene consists of animals being skinned, clubbed, skulls crushed…the list goes on. For once, perhaps a Uwe Boll film has nowhere to go but up one would think, but obviously, this sort of opening for a film can only be a bad pre-cursor for what is destined to be yet another classic Boll film. One can only imagine how low this director will go to attract attention to his films.
And this brings us to the end of Bad Ideas in Cinema This Week…but don’t worry, it is very unlikely that Hollywood will suddenly wise-up tomorrow so expect future installments in this series.
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