Screening Gotham: Escape From Are You Shitting Me?

Some of today's movie news of note from around New York:

--Today in Remake Apoplexy: Variety reports that 300 star Gerard Butler is inked to star as Snake Plissken in the retelling of Escape From New York, John Carpenter's sublime urban apocalypse satire from 1981. I mean, forget about remakes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or The Manchurian Candidate, both rotten ideas whose updating at least worked in narrative terms. Remaking Escape From New York doesn't even make sense in any number of contexts -- 9/11 aside, the city is the direct opposite of the poverty- and crime-infested hellhole it was '81, not to mention Americans have lost all faith in the system whose upholding made Plissken's rescue of a Manhattan-stranded US president so crucial in the first place. Really, if we must be this cynical, can't we channel it into something new? Like, you know, Norbit?

--If Nikki Finke's Photoshop skills (above) ever approach the level of her knack for trenchant commentary -- such as this item about Harvey Weinstein's acquisition of the fashion institution Halston -- then the rest of us wanna-bes should just switch off the computers and go sell cars.

--Non-NYC extra: Never content to simply wave the DIY flag from his base in DC, Sujewa Ekanayake has a mildly ambitious new project: IndieFilmPedia. Which is exactly what it sounds like. He's conjured two entries so far, but we can double that right now with Film Festival Success Tips (via Nikki Finke, natch) and Joe Swanberg, Hero.

Posted at March 13, 2007 7:35 AM