Unyielding Commissioning Fears The Future

They Shall All Drown In Lakes of Blood - Surely by now you've heard that there is a Conan the Barbarian remake in the works. As far as I know, they haven't cast Conan yet, but the part of Thulsa Doom is apparently set. Djimon Hounsou will do his best to emulate the amazing performance turned in by James Earl Jones in the original. Hounsou has been great in everything he's done, and always seems to engender empathy in his characters. One of the most compelling things about Jones' performance was the way he played a purely evil character, yet had a sense of calm that nearly put us under his spell as well. Hounsou has the blueprint for what to do. Now don't go yelling and mess it up.

Awww shucks - I have a friend who hates Disney more than he hates Ohio State. And he really, really hates Ohio State. He hates a lot of things, actually, but I don't know if there's anything he hates more than Disney. There's some more fuel for his fire now. Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper have decided to depart their Disney-owned show, At the Movies. Now, shows end all the time and this one had a 33 year run. Nothing to sneeze at. But I am all up in arms because according to Ebert's press release, Disney has decided to "take the program in a new direction." You can guess what this means. Tons of positive reviews and celebrity gossip. I have long believed that the film industry hates Ebert because he wields so much power and has proven to be a critic of great integrity. He is one of the few people that fights for us to keep seeing good movies and is someone that can help derail a project like What Happens in Vegas. He and Roeper have both hinted at continuing their show with another company. Ebert and the Siskel estate hold the rights to their Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down reviews, so the new version will not be able to use them (in fact, Roeper and his guests have ceased using them as of late).

Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz will take over "At the Movies," but the show will likely be irrelevant without the big-name critics. Here's hoping that we keep Ebert on TV in some fashion, even if it's just his name as he continues to recover from complications due to jaw cancer. We need him, and we need his voice to be as powerful as possible.

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