Re: Diablo Cody’s Sweet Valley High.
First of all, it’s going to be set in the 80s, so there is just no way she can let me down. I am less apprehensive about it sucking.
Secondly, upon thinking about it, the twins themselves did have some epically bad storylines of their own, like when Bruce tried to rape Elizabeth, or the fact that Jessica is just a sociopath in general.
That is all.
I apologize for the neglect, so I bring you some Men in Black III news. It is going to be filming in New York, and the plot involves K and J travelling back to 1969.
I know! I’m sorry, that’s all the information I have for now, except who the casting director is, and that concerns me not. The only other news I got for you is Premium Rush, an action thriller with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, started shooting July 19th. Not enough? Well, how about My Idiot Brother, starring Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, Emily Mortimer, Adam Scott, and Rashida Jones, is filming between now and August 13?
Pirates of the Carribean 4, which I always forget the name of, is still looking for extras. Rihanna has been cast in Battleship. That’s really all the movie news I have. You can understand the neglect.
But hey, if you need a job that lasts through Halloween and you live in the LA area, Universal Studios Hollywood is casting for Halloween Horror Nights, for street performers, stilt walkers, and for Bill and Ted’s Excellent Halloween Adventure.
I am so excited for Pee-Wee to come back to the big screen. Universal is helming the movie, and Reubens himself is penning the movie with Paul Rust. Judd Apatow is also in on the fun.
The last big screen adventure was Big Top Pee-Wee, which, let’s face it, sucked. Sucked really really hard. The only scenes I particularly enjoyed in that movie was Screech being in the movie for three seconds and the three seconds of Tequila Song at the end of the movie. You know, the ending felt like this is where the movie should have started, and it ended so abruptly. Seriously, though, if I were Dustin Diamond, I wouldn’t even worry about that Screech thing. If that hadn’t happened, he would have forever been associated as that kid from Big Top Pee-Wee. Screech’s girlfriends were Punky Brewster and Tori Spelling. I’m just saying.
Of course, theatrically, the biggest competition this Pee-Wee movie would have is Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. The movie, which was also the directorial debut of Tim Burton, shows there is nothing as purely awesome as the story of a boy and his bike. Plus, the Tequila Song is a classic!
No matter what this movie has planned, if it doesn’t have a reference to the Tequila Song, it already loses a point to Big Top Pee-Wee.
I love the movies, but I must confess: the movies make me sad. His furniture doesn’t talk! I loved Pee-Wee’s Playhouse most of all, and I love Chairry. And Pterry. Oh, heck, I even have a soft spot for Randy. Plus, Laurence Fishburne was Cowboy Curtis, and it even had the late great Phil Hartman as Captain Carl. Oh, and how I used to be obsessed with Jambi the Genie.
But let’s be serious. I love Paul Reubens. Buffy the Vampire Slayer? It was all about him. You Don’t Know Jack? He was the second best host ever! (I still love Cookie with my heart and soul.) Pushing Daisies? Why wasn’t he in the second season?! My mom thinks I’m crazy for liking him, but the man is brilliant.
Really, this was just a long, round about way for me to say I CAN’T WAIT FOR THE FREAKING PEE-WEE MOVIE!!!!! Once I see it, I can die happy. I mean, with Reubens and Apatow attached…
Oh, wait. Universal. Systematically killing my childhood one movie at a time since Josie and the Pussycats. But they also make some really good original movies, like Bruce Almighty.
No, it will be AWESOME and it will OWN every other Pee-Wee property EVER. Or I will die sad of a sadgasm right in the theatre.
No pressure on it being the best movie ever, though.
I have not forgotten about this place, I’ve just gotten busy lately. While I don’t have anything new to offer you, I offer you 10 Remakes That Prove Hollywood Was Never Original.
I hope to be back soon with more movie reviews, insight into what I think about movies in production, talking about movies I wish they would make, and more short films you should check out.
First of all, I wish to apologize to all the dudes out there. This one is for the girls who grew up with Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield.
As a little girl, I loved Sweet Valley. I started with Twins, as many girls of my age group did. I read The Unicorn Club, High, like 3 books from Senior Year, University, and Elizabeth… Not in that order, but chronologically that’s how they happened. I am stupid excited for a Sweet Valley movie, except for one thing…
Diablo Cody.
Don’t get me wrong! I love Juno and United States of Tara. But I’ve seen Juno and United States of Tara and I read many Sweet Valley series. I’ve even seen every episode of the TV show.
Side note, how weird is it that the Red Ranger was in a season 1 episode of Sweet Valley High and then later down the road Tommy from Power Rangers joined the cast? What, Saban produced the show? Yeah, that happened.
The twins never got pregnant. The twins don’t have disassociative identity disorder. In fact, many of the better story lines didn’t even happen to the twins. Enid got paralyzed in a plane accident. Robin had the eating disorder. Regina died from a drug overdose. And no, I didn’t say spoiler alert because that’s like saying spoiler alert before revealing that Darth Vader is Luke’s father. If you don’t know by now, you’re a dude who’s not watching the movie anyway or a little kid.
Truth is, high school was not a hotbed of excitement when it comes to storylines for Elizabeth and Jessica. Especially when you start University with Jessica getting married to an abusive freak that she just met, Enid changing her name to Alexandra and deciding to pull an Amy and ditch Liz for Jess, Lila getting married and having her boyfriend blow up, and Todd breaking up with Elizabeth for not sleeping with him. During the first 2 books. University ended with Elizabeth running away to England after she caught her boyfriend cheating with her with Jessica. Sweet Valley University would be a Diablo Cody worth movie.
In all fairness, Sweet Valley High had Elizabeth… protesting a beauty contest Jessica was in. Um, I mean, the twins starting a letter writing business where Elizabeth accidentally wrote her own break up letter from Todd. I mean… wasn’t there a storyline with a werewolf?
But Sweet Valley High was where it all began, and where it all ended, so logically, it’s the series that gets all the attention. I’m cautiously excited, because while this has the potential to be an awesome movie for me to compete with the boy heavy movies based on 80s properties, I read the updated Double Love. It made me cry.
Don’t let me down, Diablo Cody.
This is true and I'm not making it up. Nobody wants to see movies that are nothing but remake after remake after remake. Is creativity going to go on the rise?
If they don’t want to work on Freakazoid! the movie, I’ve seriously got ideas. I’ve even got one finished script, and that will be finished soon. Who do I need to talk to?
We’ll aka this article as “Movie I Would Kick Puppies and Sell Children into Slavery for if Done Right”. Lengthy, yeah? That’s why I went with the other thing.
I guess when Freakazoid came out, I was not in the demographic -- twice I guess part of the reason it got cancelled was because it had a huge teen boy following, and as an 11-year-old girl fan of the show, I was the freak. Do you realize how much more that just made me identify with the show? It was a shame that it was cancelled, because it was brilliant.
For those of you who don’t know, once upon a time in 1995 there was a brand-new kid’s programming block called Kids WB, to go with the brand new channel The WB. None of it exists anymore. However, one of the shows that debuted with the programming block was called Freakazoid. It lasted two seasons, or about 1/5th of the network’s life (putting it into prospective).
The show followed (sort of) 16-year-old Dexter Douglas, nerd computer ace and all around supergeek. For his birthday, he was given a computer with a Pinnacle chip that had a glitch. His cat helped him to activate the glitch, and he was sucked into the Internet where he went from geek to freak, and became superhero Freakazoid. Now, Freakazoid isn’t your mom and dad’s superhero. He… wait a minute, if you really want to know, there’s various research materials. You know, Wikis.
I feel like I’m not the only one who would support a Freakazoid movie. Probably because this happened when I Google searched “Freakazoid movie”. I bet we’ve all imagined what such a wonderful movie would be. It’d have to be at least a trilogy, of course. Of course I say of course! Here is my reasoning:
-- Origin story. Freakazoid isn’t like Batman or one of the X-Men… There is a wide audience out there who doesn’t know who he is. Plus, the show came out in 1995. I don’t know if you noticed, but technology has changed in the past 15 years, and this is a hero who got his powers by being sucked into the Internet. A fresh restart that keeps in the spirit of the show would probably be a good thing.
-- Freakazette. Those of us who remember the show also remember Freakazette was never introduced in the show officially, despite being mentioned in the first episode. She is a character who could finally be a character in a movie franchise.
-- The many sidekicks and heroes. By making it a movie franchise and not just a solo movie, there’s opportunities for the many, many characters that supported Freakazoid without trying to cram it into one movie. I, for one, would love to see a Freakazoid/Lord Bravery team up. I imagine it falling apart so fast and being GLORIOUS.
-- The many, many villains. They’re all great, and it would be unfair to have to leave any out! CaveGuy, Cobra Queen, The Lobe, Candlejack, Arms Akim--
In conclusion, Freakazoid has the opportunity to be an amazing movie franchise, and if you wouldn’t sell your kidneys to make it happen, then you, sir or madam, have no soul.
