Live, Die, Repeat…Repeat

Tom Cruise’s summer action movie, Edge of Tomorrow, was more lackluster than blockbuster, so when they released the movie on BluRay and digital, they retitled and rebranded it as “Live. Die. Repeat.” hoping the more straightforward title would attract viewers that passed over it the first time. But what you probably didn’t know is that it kickstarted a trend with the studios that has made retitling movies the new hot marketing tactic in Hollywood. Here is a guide to the films you may recognize and their new release titles, feel free to use and share it with your friends.

MORE ACCURATE REBRANDED MOVIES:

X-Men: Days of Future Past = The Original Jennifer Lawrence Leaked Nudes

Divergent = Hunger Games

Transformers: Age of Extinction = Michael Bay’s Three-Hour Explosiongasm (Plot Optional)

Neighbors = A Less Good Version of the Movie ‘Old School’ for People Too Young to Remember ‘Old School’

A Million Ways to Die in the West = Forty Million Dollars to Waste in New Mexico

Captain America: The Winter Soldier = Avengers 1.5

The Fault in Our Stars = How to Lose a Guy in Eight Days

Godzilla = Breaking Dad

Blended = The Brady Bunch (with Fewer Laughs)

Guardians of The Galaxy = Christ Pratt & The Quest to Determine Who You’re Less Familiar With: The Alien Characters on His Superhero Team or The Actors Playing Them

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 = The Only-Amazing-By-Comparison-to-the-Tobey-Maguire-Trilogy Spider-Man

300: Rise of An Empire = 300: Fall of a Franchise

Grand Budapest Hotel = Wes Anderson and The Exact Same Actors As Always Make a Movie Only Your Elitist Hipster Friends Saw

Aaron Paul’s Need for Speed = Aaron Paul’s Need for Work

Noah = Anything As Long as Russell Crowe Isn’t Singing

Draft Day = First Round Bust

22 Jump Street = 22-Year-Olds Love This Movie

The Purge: Anarchy = Leaving Las Vegas

Wish I Was Here = Zach Braff’s Ponzi Scheme

TMNT = Megan Fox’s Last Shot

The Expendables 3 = theexpendables3.torrent

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For = Sin City: An Audience to Kill For

The Maze Runner = Hunger Games

Sex Tape = All Your Favorite References From Five Years Ago

Malificent = #YesAllWomen

The Giver = Hunger Games

And there you have it…remember boys and girls, if you’re gonna watch, watch educated.

Play on,
Dustin

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Dustin’s Three to See: January

Don’t get out to the movies as often as, say, a single 29-year-old manchild with an escapism complex? Well don’t fret, I’ve taken all of Hollywood’s shoddy offerings and narrowed them down to the three that won’t make your $20 movie ticket feel like a total waste. I call it Dustin’s Three to See because I am as creative as a kindergartner. As always I keep things as spoiler free as possible.

As any even casual observer of movie culture can tell you, January is a bad month for movies. Generally considered the graveyard of the release calendar, January is where bad movies go to die. After the holidays people usually have less in the budget for activities like moviegoing or tipping their bartender, and as a result, movies that are deemed not as good as movies like Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Witness Protection end up here. Whether it’s rewrites, poor focus group results, or just an overall bad film…if you think of a movie as a toddler, January is the timeout-chair its sent to when it’s misbehaved.

That said, there were still a couple diamonds to be found in the rough of this January, and if you got an AMC giftcard for Christmas like I did, here are the January releases that are worth your while.

Movie 1) — Gangster Squad
Remember a second ago when I said how January is full of mediocre movies? Gangster Squad is not a good movie. However, it’s not a terrible movie, either. And against the rest of the January slate, that makes it…watchable. The awful tragedy in Aurora, Colorado last summer meant that Gangster Squad’s much-publicized scene where the gangsters shoot through a movie theater screen and into the audience instantly became extremely inappropriate, meaning that the newly-infamous scene and the ending of the movie both needed to be rewritten and reshot before the film could be released. Whether it was those drastic post-wrap changes or something else that made Gangster Squad only okay, we’ll never know. But if you like Ryan Gosling (and just a cursory glance at any social media suggests that you do…a lot), flapper-style Emma Stone, and some cool period-accurate visuals, Gangster Squad is worth a go…if only to whet your whistle for when The Great Gatsby comes out.

Hey girl, sorry you couldn’t be in Drive.

The 9 Stages of Creation

The writer/creator/artist lifecycle has nine very distinct stages:

1 — Get idea, think it’s great or hilarious or whatever.

2 — Write/produce/create idea, still really excited.

3 — Get about 80-90% finished creating/writing/producing idea, begin to loathe all aspects of the idea, doubt the goodness of any idea you’ve ever had.

4 — Stop working on idea altogether, now convinced you are the least-intelligent person ever…person’d…Christ I can’t even think of the right word to replace person’d, so I guess we’re just gonna leave that word in there. Question any and all accomplishments and ideas in your life, convinced everything you’ve ever written, produced, performed in, created, suggested, or said in public or private is worthless shit that even Hitler would be embarrassed to claim as his own.

5 — Finish project just so the hours you’ve poured into it won’t feel like a complete and utter waste. Contemplate sitting in running car with your garage door closed until sweet monoxide-flavored release takes you to a place away from all pressure of creativity, a place whose only language is high-fives and ice cream.

6 — Submit project to boss or internet, lock self in Y2K bunker to avoid the imminent mockery of strangers and the ostracization of your family/loved ones.

7 — Pretend your idea/project/creation never happened in the first place, make all dinner reservations under assumed identity.

8 — Many, many years later, look back on created product/idea/written work/project and get mild enjoyment from it, wonder if you might’ve been overreacting initially.

9 — Come up with new idea, repeat entire process; oblivious to the new, fresh Hell you’re about to willingly subject yourself to.

Play on,
Dustin