Quick clips for Thursday April 16

We need more commies

I'm not saying that we need a new Red Dawn. What C. Thomas Howell hath created, no man should ever remake. Still, if you're going to do it, you're going to be forced to consider the international ramifications of who you make the villains. More specifically, according to Latino Review (a Web site I don't pimp enough), the remakers just pissed off billions of people. In the in-depth script review, it is revealed that the American insurgents will be fighting against the invading Chinese army (helped out by the Russkies, and thank Jesus, I was afraid we left those bastards off the hook). The Wolverines (by the way, sidetrack here, do you think the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan call themselves things like "The Foxes" or "The Whale Riders" or something) will be similar in terms of the number of them and their names, but their stories have all been updated. Most notably, there's going to be some racial diversity! One of them is going to be Asian...I wonder if we'll have the moment when they turn on her for helping her ancestors and then she reveals that she's actually Korean, assholes. Speaking of Koreans...why not make this a Korean invading force? The world hates North Korea. Their leader is an asshat with a global domination boner. Sure, China has the means to actually invade us, but not the motivation right now, which makes the whole thing silly...okay, sillier. The other problem is that they apparently don't focus too much on the struggle of the main character, who is an Iraq war vet and now finds HIMSELF to be an insurgent. I know the obvious reason: They don't want audiences to question the morality of the situation so much as they want them watching stuff explode. I, for one, hope this angle gets played up and it takes on a whole subversive position. If not, I'm going to tell C. Thomas Howell what they've done here. The wrath of the Chinese might isn't as formidable as a Howell's rage.

A sequel to Blade Runner that isn't a sequel to Blade Runner and really doesn't have much to do with Blade Runner...Blade Runner

Okay, so I haven't seen Duncan Jones's upcoming Moon, but I know I'm going to like it. How do I know this? Well, from all accounts, it's intelligent science fiction, which I love on screen. It's a sparse movie with just Sam Rockwell doing the acting and has some clever twists. Also, I loved Solaris, the remake with George Clooney, so you know I'm coo-coo for Coco Puffs when it comes down to this kind of sci-fi (I also loved Sunshine...seriously, I'm stupid for this stuff). So it excites me that Jones has gone around talking about his next project, which will actually be in my favorite, favorite subgenre: Sci-film noir. He's going to do a mystery set in a futuristic Berlin in a film he's describing as "inspired by Blade Runner." His roundabout way of introducing this project made it sound like it is a kind of sequel. It isn't. That's good because we don't need a sequel to that perfect, perfect movie. What we need is more movies LIKE that movie, more that explore the whole feel of film noir mashed with sci-fi. I don't care that this is all total bullshit speculation at this point, that we don't have a title or cast, or even know that this is going to be made. I just like that the idea is out there, with someone potentially wicked cool. I can't wait to see Moon and I really, REALLY can't wait to see whatever this next film is called. Of course, I say all this now and he'll go and cast Jessica Alba and Kevin Costner. Just watch.

Lost recap: Chang-a-lang-a-ding-dead

Okay, so let's just start right off with what was most obvious: We all knew that Pierre Chang, AKA Marvin Candle, was the proud papa of undead peeper Miles Straum. No surprise there. What remains to be seen is exactly HOW he does see the undead and WHY he's able to do that. I was hoping this would be the episode to explain that, lest the show run out of time to tell us those answers, but alas...all we got was a charming little ditty involving Hurley and Miles and loads more daddy issues.

Here's what happened:

1.) Hopping around in Miles's life, we see him as a kid finding dead bodies in an apartment complex. We see him having problems with his mom's refusal to acknowledge his abilities and disclose his father's identity as he becomes an adult. We see Miles scamming a father by claiming to talk to a son he didn't talk to (we'll come back to this one). Finally, we see Miles being taken by Naomi to check his talent and getting drawn up into Widmore's freighter assault squad.

2.) In 1977, Miles gets brought into "the circle of trust" (anybody having a harder and harder time buying Horace as a leader?) and being told to take a body that was killed by electromagnetism to Dr. Chang, who happens to be his dad. Hurley joins along and, in between writing the script for Empire Strikes Back to send to George Lucas "with a few improvements," helps encourage Miles to get in touch with his paternal loss.

3.) The real interesting moments were quick, but nuanced, so we'll break them down here:

A - Miles revealed that he CAN'T talk to a dead person that has had their body destroyed. In the show's best scene (although, by the way, I love the actor who plays Miles...he's quite good and should get more work in the future), Miles reveals to the father he scammed that he couldn't talk to his son. Interesting. Combine that with the conversation he had with Hurley explaining that he can't CONVERSE with any of the dead people, he just sees flashes and hears things, and you get my theory for Miles's powers: it IS time-travel related in that he is able to see the past of a deceased person. Obviously, his ability has something to do with being born on the island (or perhaps his interference with his own past...something we see happening already through his interaction with his father) and has something to do with the energy contained by or released by a body, even after it's death (hence, no body, no info).

B - We found out there's potentially another group. Follow me here: We've got the Dharma people (which I'm going to include our castaways other than Sun and Locke in right now, even though Sayid is not with them), we've got the Widmore group (the freighter asshats and others), we've got "the others," and now we've got the Shadow of the Statue people (who include the chick who snagged Sayid and the guy who jacked up Miles last night and made it clear they are NOT with Widmore). That last group COULD be a part of "the others." In fact, I'm going to make a prediction: They work for Ben. When all things are equal, I use my "Alias" rule. In "Alias," it was always Irena Derevko. In "Lost," it's always Ben. Ben wanted Sayid to come back to the island, which the one chick did. Ben doesn't want Widmore messing with him, so he wouldn't want Miles to go. Now, they could be an offshoot of "The Others," which would be cool. In fact, we forget all the time issues to the point where those guys could be descendants or disciples of Locke's band of "others." Who knows? Point is, we KNOW now that they aren't Widmore's people, and that's cool.

C - Farraday is back and was in Ann Arbor doing God knows what scientific research for Dharma. As it turns out (or will turn out), a lot of this is going to end up being his fault. That's cool.

Really, it sets us up for two weeks from now with "The Variant," the episode with the most promise. Although, man, all the next episodes are going to rule. You've got a Richard Alpert episode coming and a finale called "The Incident." It's a good time to be a Lostie.