"Fright Night" (2011) and "Cowboys & Aliens" (2011)

Fright Night (2011) dir Craig Gillespie - Yeah I watched it, I felt like I had to.  While I've begun to slow my ire roll towards remakes (Rob Zombie's remakes of Halloween were fuckin rad) Fright Night (2011) made a complete botch of a totally awesome 80s horror classic.  This was like bread gone wrong.  All the ingredients were there, the bread could have been awesome, and instead it's all gross and barely edible.  What was wrong with this remake?  It didn't translate/modernize well at all.  Fright Night (1985) is kind of a time capsule that, if you're of a certain age group, works primarily as a nostalgia trip.  Fright Night (2011) just face planted as a crappy vampire movie for the Superbad generation.  The saddest part about the film is that individually the actors are perfectly reasonable (except for Colin Farrell - I just don't cotton to him) but together it was one big meh.  Checked on imdb.com and Lisa Loeb was in it?  Huh?  Don't spend money on it but if you must watch it because David Tennant is in it then don't expect much.

Cowboys & Aliens (2011) dir Jon Favreau.  I love Weird Westerns.  I love Daniel Craig.  I feel pretty good about Jon Favreau (except for that whole Iron Man 2 thing).  I still have feelings for Harrison Ford but his movies have been pretty much crap since the late-90s.  Seriously, after The Devil's Own (1997), Harrison Ford is in shite movies.  I wasn't expecting much from Cowboys & Aliens - just a popcorn movie.  Sadly it didn't even manage to accomplish that.  Again, all the elements were there but the end result was barely meh.  I blame this mess:

Roberto Orci (screenplay) & Alex Kurtzman (screenplay) & Damon Lindelof (screenplay) & Mark Fergus (screenplay) & Hawk Ostby (screenplay) - Mark Fergus (screen story) & Hawk Ostby (screen story) and Steve Oedekerk (screen story)

The story is cool but the script is awful, uneven at best, and wanders around aimlessly.  I can't recommend Cowboys & Aliens at all, even with the awesomeness of the climactic battle (during which aliens kick the shit out of cowboys, indians, and horses) and Harrison Ford riding a horse again and being bad-ass and not escaping atomic detonation in a fucking fridge. 

A brief tirade about 3D movies:

Fuck em.

To clarify:

I loathe 3-D movies, the 3-D movie trend.  The two movies I would actually see in the theater I don't know if I can because they are in 3-D.  "But Joshua,' I hear you say, "It's really cool and is going to open a whole new..."  Fuck you.  I wear glasses.  I already see in 3-D.  The glasses they charge you an outrageous sum for, yeah they are about as comfortable for me as a Dreamcast controller bashing me in the ocular region.  Additionally the lighting of 3-D movies is off so I can't watch the movies without the glasses.  But I can't wear the glasses.

grumble grumble grumble