The Most Amazing Four Minutes of Nicolas Cage's Career

Movie Sketch or What the Hell Was I Thinking? I Can't Draw!

So, the other day, over on the twitter, Alex, of the awesome blog Film Forager, posted that she was having trouble coming up with something for this week's movie sketch (I guess it would be worth noting that she posts a weekly movie sketch). I look forward to this as she is a good artist as well as movie reviewer. I, however, am neither a good movie reviewer nor a good artist. Of course I volunteered to fill the movie sketch gap. And she accepted my offer! I have no idea why! She has seen one of my drawings!

This led to a bit of a problem. One bigger than my lack of talent. No, this lead to me A) not knowing what the hell to draw and 2) really wanting to do something good! I tried drawing William Powell from The Thin Man, but I can't draw faces, at all. So, then I was going to try a t-rex from Jurassic Park. That didn't work either. Next I thought that maybe I could draw the ship from Serenity (side note, as a kid, I *loved* drawing space ships!)...nuh uh. Finally, I fell back on Star Wars. 

Yup, me, a pen and a highlighter came together to produce something that looks reasonably similar to a clone trooper's helmet. Overall, I'm fairly proud of it. I've certainly done worse (this is why I'm NOT posting what I scrapped). It's nothing near as good as anything you will EVER see as part of Alex's Movie Sketch Project, but I hope it helps fill the void this week.

Song of the Day - Black Sheep by Metric (Brie Larson version)

I think that I may have to make a voyage to some sort of place where people can buy DVDs this weekend to pick up Scott Pilgrim vs The World. Where would one go to buy DVDs though?

Random Movie Line of the Day

Bring wood and oil.

Song of the Day - Cameras by Matt and Kim

I had no idea Matt and Kim had a new album coming out. None at all until today. Upon finding out though, I had to hear it. And it is pretty damned great. It's like when you put something amazing in your mouth and eat it...but for your ears.

Halloween!

Halloween was yesterday, and I spent it travelling. However, on Saturday, I went to a Haloween party. And I wore a costume!

Then, I got tired of wearing a costume. So, I took it off. Then someone wrote on my shirt and it became my new costume.

I can't explain the helmet.

Who Would You Cast In The Remake Of My Man Godfrey

As I was getting ready to write yesterday's post about remaking the brilliant 1934 file The Thin Man, I found this half finished post on a similar topic. I was working on writing this in June of 2009 and didn't finish it. I'm sure I got distracted by something much more important and interesting (not really, just lazy). So, I'm going to go ahead and try to finish it, a year and a half later. I'm not going to really change anything that was already done, so that's why a good chunk of it refers to things that happens last year as though they just happened to today. This is kind of like time travel. I'm not going to change the past, I don't want to be my own grandfather!

I don't know if you've ever seen My Man Godfrey. I saw it for the first time almost exactly one year ago. I was in a Los Angeles hotel room, unable to sleep and flipping through channels. I stumbled on a black and white movie starring William Powell. Now, that alone is enough to get me to stop flipping. William Powell was an amazing actor. And, I'll watch anything if he's in it. It was this silly comedy about a rich girl on a scavenger hunt looking for a 'forgotten man'. Someone who'd fallen through the cracks. It's set during the great depression and was a movie that was meant to show the divide between the two worlds. Rich vs poor. It's funny and amazing and I absolutely fell in love with this movie. The only problem was that I had no fucking clue what it was called!

It was two days later that I learned it was My Man Godfrey. I eventually bought the Criterion Collection DVD and have been listening to the commentary on it. It's really a wonderful movie that I just can't recommend enough. However, and I'm being honest here, I think it's ripe for a remake.

Credit where credit is due. It was Caitlin at 1,416 and Counting that left my mind open to this idea. She posted about remakes*, and I took a decidedly rational approach. I know, how dare I! This is the INTAWEBS! Look, I can be as petty and childish as anyone. There are blogs and bloggers that I just plain don't like, and I can be vocal about that. People can get me riled up. Politics can upset me. Remakes I'm okay with.

Now, don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with the original. It's a classic in every sense of the word. I think though, that it doesn't resonate in today's world. I think it could actually be remade successfully. You won't get an actor of Powell's caliber for it. And, I don't think you need it. Now, after some thought, I'd like to play a bit of a game. It's a game that I'm calling Who Would You Cast In The Remake? It's actually an old game that my friend and I used to play while watching Godzilla movies and drinking beers.

As you can see, all I really got to was the setup. So, let's pick it up from there.

Let me set the scene for how this all started. Back in the year 2003, my friend and I used to spend our Friday nights watching Godzilla movies. One night, we were watching Godzilla 2000 and noticed something strange. It was uncanny how much some of the actors could be Japanese doppelgangers for American actors.One actor looked like Riker from Star Trek: The Next Generation, one looked like Bruce Campbell, and so on like that**.

Long story slightly less long, I thought it would be fun to try to cast a remake of My Man Godfrey. Now, I'm just going to go for the lead roles, Godfrey and Irene. Let's start, not with Godfrey, but with with Irene Bullock, originally played by the beautiful Carole Lombard. I'm going to try to go with my gut feeling here. I'm not sure she'd be perfect, and it might be a bit unconventional, but I think she could play spoiled brat well in a romantic/screwball comedy. I'm thinking of Kristen Bell.

Of course, the most important role is Godfrey himself. Here you need someone who can exude the affable charm embodied by William Powell. This seems like it would be a tough choice. For some reason though, it's not. There's an actor out there whom I think would be ideal for the role. He's British, but does a perfect American accent and he's an excellent comedic actor. I'm talking about Hugh Laurie. Yeah, the guy who plays Dr. House.

The other great thing about My Man Godfrey is the excellent and eccentric supporting cast. So, play along! Who would YOU cast in these roles?

*Edited to update the link
**It's worth noting the Winona Ryder ALWAYS was always the leading lady.