The LXB Speaks | Where Are They Now?

I wasn't the only one who immediately thought of The Breakfast Club for the League of Extraordinary Bloggers' "Where Are They Now?" week. Unlike me, a couple of other LXB members followed through on that idea and came up with some interesting scenarios. Flashlights Are Something to Eat suggests that Brian has a successful business and a large family, Andy had a short-lived wrestling career in college, and Bender... poor Bender.

Siftin' had a fantastic idea: a fake documentary catching up on all of John Hughes' Shermer, Illinois characters at the same time. I especially love his suggestion that Samantha Baker from Sixteen Candles ended up married to Duckie from Pretty in Pink. I just hope that Claire didn't leave Bender for Steff. My only suggestion is that this idea is too awesome for a movie. It should be a TV series with Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall playing multiple characters.

Brian at Cool and Collected also has some great ideas about what happened to the Breakfast Club. Even though I said I wouldn't want to see another version than my own, underdeveloped one, Brian's is a take I can get behind. I especially love how he created elements for future dramatic potential in each character.

Check out the other responses to the assignment (Labyrinth and Monster Squad were also popular choices) at Cool and Collected.

LXB | Jack and Lili from Legend: Where Are They Now?

Assignment: The '80s and '90s were filled with kids and teens in the movies. Which movie would you like to see a sequel made in 2012 with the original cast members, who have aged the same as you and me?

My first thought was of The Breakfast Club. As soon as I finished watching that movie back in 1985, I was ready for the sequel. I really wanted to know: would all these kids still be friends come Monday? On the other hand, I also knew that no one - not even John Hughes - could make a satisfying Breakfast Club sequel. I already had a very specific vision of what Monday would be like; I just wanted to see it confirmed. And there's no way it could have been.

A 25-years-later sequel would be a bad idea for similar reasons. Part of me would love to catch up with Bender, Claire, Allison, Andy, and Brian in middle-age; maybe at a high school reunion. But most of me realizes that I still don't want to see that. I have my own ideas about where these characters ended up that are uniquely mine. Seeing anything else on the screen is doomed to disappoint.

So I'm going with Tom Cruise and Mia Sara's characters from Legend. Unlike the very real characters in The Breakfast Club, Jack and Lili are ciphers ("archetypes," if we're being generous); blank characters with no real personality. I love Legend and saw it enough times that I once could quote the entire thing from memory (there's not a lot of dialogue, so it's not that hard), but its two leads aren't examples of great writing or acting. I used to give Mia Sara a pass for being Ferris Bueller's girlfriend, but I don't anymore and - honestly - she wasn't that great in Ferris Bueller's Day Off either. Darkness (Tim Curry), on the other hand...an entirely different story.

But it's Jack and Lili's blandness that makes them perfect for catching up to. Contrasting them again with the kids from The Breakfast Club, a filmmaker could write Older Jack and Lili anyway she wanted to without competing with my personal preferences. The world Ridley Scott created in Legend is gorgeous and fantastic, but it has some of the same problems that Jack and Lili do. Scott never tries to ground it or make it feel like a real place. That helps with the fairy tale feel, but it's also a reason that I haven't gone back and watched the movie much as an adult. So, like Jack and Lili, I'd love to revisit the world of Legend and learn more about it.  There are a lot of possibilities there.

Tom Cruise is still a charismatic, active screen presence and though Mia Sara hasn't done a lot of acting lately (concentrating more on making grandkids for Sean Connery and Jim Henson), it would be fun to catch up with her too. And Tim Curry, of course. If you remember the final shot of Legend, with Darkness laughing menacingly as he's superimposed over the heroes who believe he's been destroyed; well, most of the plot of Legend 2  pretty much writes itself.

And Now the News: BOOM! POTATO POTATO!

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides



Pirates of the Caribbean 4 has a sub-title and it's the same as the name of Tim Powers' pirate novel. What's more, Powers' book features the Fountain of Youth, the very thing Jack Sparrow was setting off in search of at the end of Pirates 3. Some quick Googling reveals that I'm not the only one who's made this connection. I haven't heard anything from Disney yet about the the movie being an adaptation of Powers' book, but it can't be coincidence.

Lego Pirates Advent Calendar



Nothing says Christmas like pirates, mermaids, and crazy monkeys. Unfortunately, we're not allowed to get into the proper spirit here in the US. I hope Calvin has room for me in the Canadian Cave of Coolness, 'cause I'm willing to defect over this. Jason Copland's Canadian too. Hm...

Empires of the Deep



Robert Hood catches that the title of Mermaid Island has been changed to the more serious and epic-sounding Empires of the Deep. Unfortunately, Catwoman-director Pitof is still directing it, but I'm maintaining my optimism that it could be fun. That's based purely on its huge budget and my blind belief that it should be really, really hard to mess up a movie about merfolk fighting giant sea monsters.

Unexplained Lost



Carlton Cuse and some other Lost bigwigs have begun warning fans that not all of the series' mysteries will be explained by the finale. I'm guessing that that sounds scarier than it actually is unless you're one of those fans who's been meticulously cataloging every hint, clue, and revelation from the very beginning. I'll be very disappointed if there are any huge dangling plot threads, but yeah... we probably shouldn't expect every "i" to be dotted and every "t" to be crossed.

That said, I've been holding off on buying the DVDs until after the show finishes and will be paying very close attention to the reaction of hardcore fans to the series finale. It's one thing to sort of casually enjoy the show as it's unfolding, but if I'm going to watch it all over again as a complete story, I'll want that story to be cohesive and make sense.

Some Jungle Girl Comics



Rulah vs. the Death Image [Comic Book Catacombs]



Zegra the Jungle Empress and the Games of Havoc [Pappy's Golden Age Comics Blogzine]

Knockout



Steven Soderbergh's making a spy movie starring mixed martial artist Gina Carano.

I know you know that we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are.



Allison Reynolds turned up in Psych last season as a serial killer. Now John Bender's signed up for an episode. Three to go.

Dark Days movie update

Steve Niles talks to Shock Till You Drop about the challenges of adapting Dark Days to film. "I'd say there's about as many changes as there were from the first graphic novel to the first movie, but not as drastic." Click the link for some details of what he's talking about.

Wizarding World of Harry Potter update



/Film's got all kinds of concept art and a video that give a real nice idea of what Universal Studios' new Harry Potter theme park's going to be like.

"New" Pooh



/Film also has a round-up of Disney and Pixar animation news including the announcement of a new Winnie the Pooh film that "ape(s) the watercolour style of the books with the white 'page' showing through." It'll also adapt five of AA Milne's stories that haven't been adapted yet.

I wonder if they'll also use the character designs from the original books. That would be really cool. I think they've done everything that can be done with the Disney versions. Time for a reboot.

Project Waldo



Nate Simpson is blogging his way through the production of his graphic novel, Project Waldo. There's some great stuff there for process junkies like me, but there's also some fantastic art if you don't care about the craft-talk. [Robot 6]

No BOOM! POTATO POTATO! for you! (Or me or anyone else for that matter...)

The Rejectionist - written by "a foul-tempered, snack-needing, whiskey-craving, ill-paid assistant at an Important Literary Agency in New York" - is one of my favorite blogs about the publishing industry. It's as funny as it is informative.

But I'm deeply dismayed to hear her say that no one's going to publish a book called BOOM! POTATO POTATO! and the Princess of Papyrion. Because I really want to read that book.