The Sunday Question: Halloween Style

Welcome to a very special Halloween edition of the Sunday Question. The place where you get to rant, rave, rebuke, rebut, or any other argumentative 'r' word you can think of whenever I come up with a good question.


This Week's Prompt: It's Halloween. All of your friends are at your house for 2 hours tonight to watch a scary movie. You want one that is going to destroy their sense, and scare them to hell. WHAT Is Your Go to Movie?

Considerations: First and foremost you want a movie they haven't seen, so obscurity in choice is a solid pick. Secondly you want a movie that's not also going to scare the *@#$ out of you (would kind of ruin the moment). Thirdly it needs to be a movie that will be worthy of mention as a film buff. We could all go House of Wax for the sheer terror of Paris Hilton's placid acting, but I'm talking proper scary. Trapped in a hole, chased by a monster, whatever. Make your case!

BEGIN!

The Sunday Question: Reboot vs. Remake

The Sunday Question is back and ready to go. So get your minds ready, and here we go!

This Week's Prompt: Is there really a difference between a reboot and a remake?

Considerations: The new go to "word" for a new film series where one already exists seems to be "reboot." Which to me basically means 1 of the following two (or perhaps both):

1. a remake for something we are out of ideas on how to continue but still want to keep doing it anyways because it's a proven commodity.
2. a failed, or dead, series, or upstart, that we would like to enter once again, and hope we don't mess up in the same way as before.

Still, no matter how you coat it, it's still, by most accounts, a remake. Taking something that's already there in form, reorganizing it, perhaps changing a handful of elements, and presenting once again for the viewer to see. Now, whether or not an appropriate time needs to pass in between these reboots/remake things is entirely up in the air.


Let the debate, begin!

The Sunday Question: Product Placement

The Sunday Question is back and ready to go. So get your minds ready, and here we go!

This Week's Prompt: Does the use of product placement undermine, or weaken, a film?

Considerations: I suppose the first thing to do would be to decipher product placement, from filming location. I don't deny that having certain stores in your background might be a quick move, but let's be honest the world is filled with name brand stores, it'd be harder to film in streets without any. So I would define product placement as the deliberate use of a product, or name brand/company logo/etc, to entice the viewer in favor of that particular item. Next, I suppose it depends on the usage. Is it merely a background shot or does the director feel the need, as is often the case with car logos, to perform an unnecessary cut, or pan shot, to emphasis the logo. If so, does that interrupt the flow of the film?

Let the debate, begin!