Just for the record, it looks like Aronofsky's Robocop is not going to be a remake but rather a sequel to the original film (and I suppose the attrocious Robocops 2 and 3). Apparently the new movie is set twenty years after the original Robocop program from the first film was shut down. Incidently, this brings up an interesting trend that seems to be happening a lot lately, that of franchise sequels being made decades after the last film in the series. Obviously this summer that has brought us the first new Indiana Jones movie in twenty years, but one of the other big peices of news to come out of Comic Con was the teaser trailer for Disney's Tron 2 with Jeff Bridges reprising his role from the first film in what looks to be a much darker sequel.

because I bet the truth is far more zany then anything he could make up. I bet stuff will come out in twenty or so years that will be beyond anything we can imagine now. Wolfowitz will have some kind of deathbed confession or something. And of course half his cabinet, including Cheney and Rumsfeld, will be dead by then. Bush will come out looking like the puppet clown we all knew he was from the beginning.

Oliver just finished shooting this movie here in Shreveport, Louisiana earlier this month. The Bush story will no doubt fall into the category "truth is stranger than fiction".

I crossed paths with Mr. Stone in a local restaurant one Saturday evening back in June. I now know what must inspire his flights of fancy. Oliver had the tell-tale signs of a ganja induced glaze that evening. Two days later a friend who works at his family's grocery / deli related the story of Oliver having a "smoke" outside in the garden dining area as he and his entourage dined that afternoon.

It was fun having him here for a couple of months. He's a good guy. I'll look forward to his movie.

Granted, I'm with you about having no interest in The Dark Knight, and being more than mildly frustrated with the national obsession over it. And I don't understand why, if adults want to experience a dark vision that makes them question the nature of our souls and our sanity, they don't instead read, say, Crime and Punishment.

But I think it's a bit fraudulent to criticize a comic book movie (no matter how pretentious) for being a comic book movie while eagerly anticipating the upcoming Oliver Stone movie which—if it's anything like the other movies he's made—will be a supposed adult drama that is actually a comic book movie. The fans of The Dark Knight know the difference between the fictional world of Gotham and the one they live in. The writer/director of JFK cannot make those distinctions.

I also disagree with Michael Atkinson's major assumption: that people who enjoy comic book movies hide from complex realities. It's more likely because they face these realities every day that they want to escape for two plus hours into world where the good guy pummels the baddies. It's probably analogous to the escapest entertainment of the 30's and 40's. Do you think the audiences who couldn't get enough of Shirely Temple and Mickey Rooney were incapable of assessing the circumstances of the Depression or World War II?

I want to see George Bush tormented by a big, scary refrigerator! I want to see Laura Bush and a double-sided.....oh, forget it.

Anyway, I hadn't heard about Aronofsky and Robocop, but does that mean Rachel Weisz will play the Nancy Allen role? If so, I'm in!

Bring back Peter "Buckaroo Banzai" Weller!

As for Oliver Stone's "W," it looks good to me. I'll see it just to see Bush get raked over the coals. I hope Oliver Stone stages a really crazy coke-snorting scene or to, possibly set to Doors music (oops he already did that in another movie, I think).

Oliver Stone has made some really nutty films, but he definitely has a special, kooky something. He's like a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in LSD-tinged cellophane. I watched "JFK" again recently and it's amazing how much information (and misinformation) he loaded into that film and how he makes so many geeky conspiratorial details so compelling.

Regarding the Terminator film, about all that need be said about it is that it's directed by "McG," whose other main credits are the Charlie's Angels movies. Maybe he has been building up to this, who knows. I will probably see it at some point, but when something's a whole year away, I don't particularly care to think about it.

Same with "Watchmen." It's directed by the guy who turned historical Persians into giant nipple-ringed homosexual monsters for "300," so.....maybe he's found his calling.

mattcable: "Disney's Tron 2 with Jeff Bridges..."

Are you freaking serious?!

I think I just had a nerd-gasm.

Bring back David Warner too!

alchemy-flying: "Oliver just finished shooting this movie here in Shreveport, Louisiana earlier this month. The Bush story will no doubt fall into the category "truth is stranger than fiction"."

I used to live there. Shreveport has a very film-company-friendly chamber of commerce. They shoot a surprising number of movies in and near that town. It's hardly surprising that the actors got into a barfight, as many of the locals are total dumbass yokels.

alchemy-flying: "I crossed paths with Mr. Stone in a local restaurant one Saturday evening back in June. I now know what must inspire his flights of fancy. Oliver had the tell-tale signs of a ganja induced glaze that evening."

Stone has done just about every drug, including lots of magic mushrooms. David Lynch is also a major pothead. I used to know his then-personal assistant, and one of his side-jobs was procuring weed for Lynch's wake-and-bake habit.

Christoph: "And I don't understand why, if adults want to experience a dark vision that makes them question the nature of our souls and our sanity, they don't instead read, say, Crime and Punishment."

I read Crime and Punishment. In high school. Reread it years later. It's long!