FFF for April 22, 1994
It’s Friday, April 22, 1994, which can only mean one thing: time for another radical edition of the Friday Film Fiesta!
Spring is in the air, but we’re only a few short weeks away from the beginning of the summer movie season. Huge films such as The Flintstones, The Mask, and 3 Ninjas Kick Back look to take the box office by storm, so get excited!
But before we get to this week’s news, I just wanted to say a few words about former President Richard Nixon, who passed away earlier today. Though his presidency will be remembered for the Watergate scandal, we have to remember that the man had a giant heart. Nixon refused to give back his cocker spaniel Checkers, which he had received as a gift. Any lesser man would have dumped the dog in a rainy alley like that chick from Breakfast At Tiffany’s but Nixon kept the dog and helped Dwight Eisenhower win the 1952 Presidential Election. And for that, Richard Nixon and his dog Checkers should be remembered as a heroes.
Last week I asked you who should play Kurt Cobain in the rumored upcoming Cobain/Nirvana biopic, and you answered with Macaulay Culkin, who beat out ER’s George Clooney by a single vote. Of course we would probably have to wait a few years for that since Culkin is still a teenager.
-- Box Office News: A lack of new films causes Four Weddings and a Funeral to claim the top spot. I’m puzzled, as I stated on my blog “A Hugh Good Men” when it was released last month that I thought it was rather meh. I just wish there was a way I could work that thought into the title of the movie.
-- Trailer Time: There were two big trailers released this week. The first is for Star Trek: Generations, which features Kirk AND Picard! The second is Timecop, which looks to be an AWESOME JCVD movie. Come on, TIME TRAVEL! MARTIAL ARTS! What more could you want? This should be better than Back to the Future. Other trailers released include The Shawshank Redemption, Clerks, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, The Santa Clause, The Pagemaster, and Little Women
-- In Theaters This Week: Bad Girls, Brainscan, and Chasers
-- Next Week’s Notable VHS Releases: Mrs. Doubtfire (April 26)
-- RIP Dennis Cleveland Stewart
-- Boy, Jurassic Park sure did inspire some creativity in Hollywood! Last week we got wind of George Lucas wanting to create a prequel film for the Star Wars trilogy, showing how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader, and now it seems that some dirty looking fat dude named Peter Jackson is looking to make a film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings book series. I don’t care how realistic computers made those dinosaurs look, there’s no way we have the technology to make an epic like Lord of the Rings look real. Maybe in the year 2027. I could, however, see a new animated version from Disney being made
-- Speaking of Disney, the upcoming animated feature The Lion King is already receiving flack for ripping off an old cartoon called Kimba, the White Lion
-- And speaking of special effects, here’s a cool feature on the upcoming movie Forrest Gump, which will be using computers to place Tom Hanks into historical events from the past few decades
-- Quentin Tarantino will be debuting his latest film Pulp Fiction at the Cannes Film Festival next month
-- The ending of last year’s Jason Goes to Hell was apparently setting up a Jason vs. Freddy movie
-- The Crow hits theaters next month, but producers don’t want to market the film as a tribute to Brandon Lee. Todd McCarthy from Variety sent me a glowing review of the movie, which will be published next week
-- The first image of Lord Zedd, the new main villain for the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in this fall's second season, has been released
-- Hulk Hogan’s new syndicated TV series Thunder in Paradise has disappointed in the ratings so far, but the Hulkster is still finding new ways to make money by shilling the city of Orlando in the series. He’ll probably need that cash since all signs point to cancellation of the series, and we’ve been reading that Hogan to WCW WILL NOT HAPPEN. Look, I don’t care if WCW shoots Saturday Night tapings in the same studio as Thunder in Paradise (the Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World theme park), that’s just a coincidence and does NOT mean that Hogan is going to wrestle again. He wants to be an actor, just leave him be!
Ugh, sorry for the long rants on CGI and wrestling this week. Let’s finish things with this week’s poll.
Spring is in the air, but we’re only a few short weeks away from the beginning of the summer movie season. Huge films such as The Flintstones, The Mask, and 3 Ninjas Kick Back look to take the box office by storm, so get excited!
But before we get to this week’s news, I just wanted to say a few words about former President Richard Nixon, who passed away earlier today. Though his presidency will be remembered for the Watergate scandal, we have to remember that the man had a giant heart. Nixon refused to give back his cocker spaniel Checkers, which he had received as a gift. Any lesser man would have dumped the dog in a rainy alley like that chick from Breakfast At Tiffany’s but Nixon kept the dog and helped Dwight Eisenhower win the 1952 Presidential Election. And for that, Richard Nixon and his dog Checkers should be remembered as a heroes.
Last week I asked you who should play Kurt Cobain in the rumored upcoming Cobain/Nirvana biopic, and you answered with Macaulay Culkin, who beat out ER’s George Clooney by a single vote. Of course we would probably have to wait a few years for that since Culkin is still a teenager.
-- Box Office News: A lack of new films causes Four Weddings and a Funeral to claim the top spot. I’m puzzled, as I stated on my blog “A Hugh Good Men” when it was released last month that I thought it was rather meh. I just wish there was a way I could work that thought into the title of the movie.
-- Trailer Time: There were two big trailers released this week. The first is for Star Trek: Generations, which features Kirk AND Picard! The second is Timecop, which looks to be an AWESOME JCVD movie. Come on, TIME TRAVEL! MARTIAL ARTS! What more could you want? This should be better than Back to the Future. Other trailers released include The Shawshank Redemption, Clerks, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, The Santa Clause, The Pagemaster, and Little Women
-- In Theaters This Week: Bad Girls, Brainscan, and Chasers
-- Next Week’s Notable VHS Releases: Mrs. Doubtfire (April 26)
-- RIP Dennis Cleveland Stewart
-- Boy, Jurassic Park sure did inspire some creativity in Hollywood! Last week we got wind of George Lucas wanting to create a prequel film for the Star Wars trilogy, showing how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader, and now it seems that some dirty looking fat dude named Peter Jackson is looking to make a film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings book series. I don’t care how realistic computers made those dinosaurs look, there’s no way we have the technology to make an epic like Lord of the Rings look real. Maybe in the year 2027. I could, however, see a new animated version from Disney being made
-- Speaking of Disney, the upcoming animated feature The Lion King is already receiving flack for ripping off an old cartoon called Kimba, the White Lion
-- And speaking of special effects, here’s a cool feature on the upcoming movie Forrest Gump, which will be using computers to place Tom Hanks into historical events from the past few decades
-- Quentin Tarantino will be debuting his latest film Pulp Fiction at the Cannes Film Festival next month
-- The ending of last year’s Jason Goes to Hell was apparently setting up a Jason vs. Freddy movie
-- The Crow hits theaters next month, but producers don’t want to market the film as a tribute to Brandon Lee. Todd McCarthy from Variety sent me a glowing review of the movie, which will be published next week
-- The first image of Lord Zedd, the new main villain for the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in this fall's second season, has been released
-- Hulk Hogan’s new syndicated TV series Thunder in Paradise has disappointed in the ratings so far, but the Hulkster is still finding new ways to make money by shilling the city of Orlando in the series. He’ll probably need that cash since all signs point to cancellation of the series, and we’ve been reading that Hogan to WCW WILL NOT HAPPEN. Look, I don’t care if WCW shoots Saturday Night tapings in the same studio as Thunder in Paradise (the Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World theme park), that’s just a coincidence and does NOT mean that Hogan is going to wrestle again. He wants to be an actor, just leave him be!
Ugh, sorry for the long rants on CGI and wrestling this week. Let’s finish things with this week’s poll.