What I've Missed This Week

Sorry for being MIA this week loyal readers. I've had back-to-back vacations, an engagement and was even stung by a jellyfish, so I've been pretty busy. To make up for my lack of devotion to Honest | Unmerciful this week, I've decided to recap what's been going on in the film industry.

1) A Dirty Dancing Remake. I didn't stutter. It seems High School Musical director Kenny Ortega is at it again. Though I admire the man, trying to remake this classic seems silly and a sure fire way to make a lot of people mad. I think Ortega should have taken some hints from the too-gross-to-watch Footloose remake trailer that I saw a couple weeks ago. Leave the classics in the '80s where they belong. But Jennifer Grey, the star of the first film seems to think otherwise. “I’m so excited about this news and I think there’s nobody better to do this than my beloved Kenny Ortega, who is as responsible as anyone for the success of the first one. I can’t wait to see what he’s going to do with it.” Whatever Jennifer, you know that no one went to go see that movie for you....it was all about the Swayyyzzzzzeeeee.

2) Kathryn Bigelow's Bin Laden movie caused controversy. Bigelow has been talking about this project for a while. After winning Best Director for her film The Hurt Locker (which also won Best Picture), many have been waiting to see what her next move will be. Turns out it's just a simple movie about one of the most complex missions in American history...NBD. Well after a column came out in The New York Times saying that Bigelow and her fellow filmmaker Mark Boal were getting insider information on the mission to help Obama's campaign, the project took a turn for the scandalous. However, both the White House and the filmmakers deny any such collaboration.

3) Tom Cruise's Mission Impossible 15 million got a trailer and new images. Not much is noteworthy here except for the fact that Cruise is starting to aim his career in the direction of Nick Cage.

4) A Very Harold & Kumar Xmas gets a trailer. Set to come out in early November of this year, the film follows the two stoner friends as they go on more pointless adventures. A family flick just in time for the holidays!

5) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 becomes the third highest grossing film of all time at $1.148 billion globally. Beating Mr. Potter are Titanic at $1.843 and Avatar at $2.782. However, the film's still in theaters so maybe it will make it to the number two spot. The next closest Potter film was the first, which is 11th on the highest grossing film list.

6) Disney announced two Marvel release dates for 2014, but won't say what films they will be. Since Iron Man 3 and Thor 2 are already set, we can count those two out. I'm thinking the Flash movie that we've heard murmurs about might have a shot. Or maybe Jeremy Renner's Avenger's character Hawkeye will get his own flick.

7) Speaking of sequels, The Amazing Spider-Man film, set to come out in July next year, already has a sequel date set. The second of this Spider-Man reboot will come out May 2, 2014. Though I'm definitely excited for the film, it seems like they're counting their spiders before they've hatched.

8) We learned Colin Firth knows how to stutter in "British" but not how to speak in a Southern accent. The Main Street trailer is pretty rough.

9) I'm going to see The Help tomorrow with a review to follow. And don't worry, I have finished the book so I do consider myself well-versed enough to write this one.

10) SJP shoots her new movie in NYC and somehow I miss it. And I call myself a fan.