CROSSTOPIX #8: Top 5 Overrated, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Video Games Based on Movies, TV Shows that Should Return

Welcome to CrossTopix #8! For those who use social networking, CrossTopix is on Facebook and now MySpace and Twitter! Become fan on any of those and get notifications of updates, interesting news pieces, and other fun updates. This week, we debut a regular new feature: The Top 5. This week, we look at the Top 5 most overrated in entertainment, be it actors, directors, movies, video games, music, you name it! Along with that, we talk about the new Nightmare on Elm Street, TV shows that could return, and good video games based on movies. This week, CharlieCat joins the discussion as well as a very good friend of ours who will introduce himself right now.

Matt McCollum: Hi my name is Matt McCollum. I am good friends with STVO and CharlieCat. I am really into movies, old TV shows, and sometimes I read. I like going to conventions. Any convention is cool but I mainly like horror conventions. I guess horror is my favorite genre, but I do like dark comedies too. I used to write a lot, I don’t do that much now but I hope to do it again. If so, I'd like to promote it on this site. We'll see.

1.) List the Top 5 Most Overrated in Entertainment (Movies, Games, Celebrities, TV, Musicians, etc.)

STVO’S Top 5 (In Order)

1. Jack Ass (The TV Show, Movies, and Most Likely Video Game)

2. Arrested Development (TV Show)

3. Fight Club (The Movie)

4. Grand Theft Auto (Video Game Series)

5. Tie: Kevin Smith/Jhonen Vasquez (Writers/Directors)

I could explain my reasons why, but it would greatly exceed the sentence limit. If you wonder why for me or the other guests, please leave a comment.

CharlieCat’s Top 5 (No Particular Order)

Reality TV shows

Miley Cyrus a.k.a. Hannah Montana

Fight Club (movie only since I have not read the book)

The Halo video game series

The NFL

Matt’s Top 5 (No Particular Order)

1. Kevin Smith: Clerks was the only good movie by him in my opinion and even that was like Down by Law by Jim Jarmusch. The rest of his movies are just the same jokes and they all preach relationships.

2. Miley Cyrus: Crappy music/crappy TV show.

3. Dane Cook: All he does is point out stuff we already know and put a lot of physically

comedy into it.

4. The Original Friday the 13^th Part 1: Why is that considered to be a classic? It’s boring, the killing scenes aren’t that great, and the killer is a lady that looks like the Murder She Wrote lady.

5. That 70’s Show: It wasn’t funny and I didn’t buy the characters were from the 70’s as most of them seemed like stuck-up Hollywood d***he bags. Not even Red and Kitty Foreman (who I found funny) nor Tommy Chong saved this garbage for me.

2. With A Nightmare on Elm Street coming out this week, do you believe the new one has the potential to

be better than the original? From the trailers, what are your current thoughts of this movie?

STVO: I haven’t been very big on remakes coming out recently, especially for movies I don’t feel are necessary (i.e. King Kong, The Hills Have Eyes, etc.) I am a little iffy on whether I feel this remake of Wes Craven’s genre-defying series will be superior to the original but I feel there is a good chance it could be decent. Jack Earl Haley did a great job as Rorschach in the Watchmen movie and the acting for that character I can be well suited to play Freddy Krueger. I find it very unique they are attempting to make it darker than the original movie and even expand on Krueger’s back-story which I always like to see. While I’ll always enjoy Wes Craven’s first movie, I will be giving it a chance this Friday.

CharlieCat: Allow me to offend a great number of people, by saying, yes; I really do believe this one has potential to be better than the original. First off, I'm not much of a fan of Wes Craven. I feel most of his movies' plots lose focus. Although, I am not a fan of the remake-a-palooza of today, remakes are some classics of the horror genre at least. John Carpenter redid “The Thing”, which is one of my faves, David Cronenberg redid “The Fly”, a staple for the 80's sci/fi-horror fan, and Craven's first film, “The Last House on the Left” was just a rip off of a much superior film, Ingmar Bergman's “The Virgin Springs”.

I LOVE Jack Earl Haley as Freddy; his low, growly and gravelly voice is reminiscent of his role as Rorschach from “The Watchman”. And he has played the part of a creepy pedophile in “Little Children.” I love the sound byte, “Why are you screaming? I haven't even cut you yet!” The original Nightmare was very campy and the very perverted, flamboyant Freddy everybody came to love, by the great Robert Englund, didn't come out until the sequels. He was more a creature of the shadows in the original, which was great, it added to his mystique and creepiness factor. I have a far open mind for this remake than most. I just hope it doesn't give me nightmares!

Matt: I think the New Nightmare will be more serious but not as cool. It looks like in the previews it is just rehashing old scenes such as when Freddy’s claw appears in the bathtub or when Freddy comes out of the wall. It looks like in the beginning they’re trying to make Freddy look innocent, which could be interesting, but if he is innocent, then why take it out on a bunch of innocent kids? I guess the burning made him lose that innocence.

I used to have a hard time liking the Freddy movies because of how goofy they were, but they grew on me. I hope this is a more serious take, just because that would be more interesting than a copy of what’s already out there. Although, I think Freddy is meant to be funny. Like Chucky, even in the original Child’s Play, Chucky has a sense of humor and I liked that.

Taking away the sense of humor would be lame at the same time. For me, it’s kind of a hard remake to do because I want a more serious version but at the same time I want his humor to still be there. In Dark Knight, the Joker still had a sense of humor but was still pretty dark. He was even in drag as a nurse and the movie was still dark and not campy. Even when he rode a skateboard and dressed in drag he still killed the kids in brutal ways. Overall it’ll probably just be ok.

3. In many people's opinions, some TV shows are canceled pre-maturely. Some have been lucky to be brought back (Family Guy, Futurama, Jetsons, Scrubs) and others haven't. Are there any shows you would like to see come back or could see being revived?

STVO: The only shows I could see being decent to great revivals are animated television programs. Sure they could get both Bronson Pinchot and Mark Linn-Baker to reprise their roles as Balki and Larry of Perfect Strangers and even add Reginald Vel Johnson and Jaleel White as Carl Winslow and Steve Urkel for “Perfect Matters” or “Family Strangers”, but would anyone want to see that? Okay I sort of do…

On a serious note, while The Critic and Mission Hill were cancelled too early in my opinion, each show are respectively 10-20 years old and I don’t think new episodes would be as great for those. One show I want to see revived as a movie is Samurai Jack where he fights Aku to ret urn to the past or die in the future. Two shows I’d love to see with new episodes are Megas XLR and Outlaw Star. Megas did have a decent ending but could have easily continued and when I met Steven Blum at Anime Central, I remember he told he loved being on that show. As for Outlaw Star, it was a great action anime and with anime such as InuYasha or Full Metal Alchemist making returns, why not?

CharlieCat: Oh wow, I get to make CharlieCat TV? Haha. I would definitely bring back the clever and witty animated show, “The Critic”. Made by some of those goofballs responsible for “The Simpsons

”, the show was about a movie critic (wow, really?!) named Jay Sherman, voiced by John Lovitz. It basically did parodies of movies, which is always relevant material, as well as diving into Jay's loner life. Great show! Bring it back! “It stinks!” Oh, whoops, that was Jay's trademark, this show didn't.

Matt: I don’t think most shows should be remade. I think they should bring back Gary and Mike, a clay-animated show originally on UPN with reruns on Comedy Central later on. That was a good show and I think it definitely deserves more episodes and would work on Adult Swim with the vulgar sense of humor. Speaking of which, I think Mission Hill should get new episodes too, people seem to like it. The nerdy kid can be annoying at times but I like the show overall. If they can bring back Futurama and Scrubs then they shouldn’t have any problem bringing back those shows.

Then of course there are shows they should bring back that would suck but I would find funny to watch. Roseanne: Make it like the last season, it wouldn’t last long but I’d watch it. The same goes for Family Matters and Perfect Strangers. But on a serious note, I do think HBO should bring back Spawn. It was a mini-series I think, but should be brought back as a full show. I loved Tales from the Crypt on HBO but I couldn’t see that

show being around today. The same goes for Beavis and Butthead. It would be interesting but just wouldn’t work. I admit though, I would watch it religiously. I would like to see the Rugrats and Doug come back, not the one where they’re in middle school nor the Disney Doug. I doubt those shows would work today, but I’d still like to see them come back.

4. Video games based on movies tend to receive a bad rap. In some cases, developers have shown they do care and put out an excellent video game representing the movie well. What is your favorite video game based on a movie and what is one that truly shines as awful to you?

STVO: While most would probably see Goldeneye on Nintendo 64, I’ll be different and go with The Chronicles of Riddick: Esacape from Butcher Bay from the original Xbox. It was a very fun game that had a great storyline that should have been used for the movie that was released and a unique way of playing. It was a first person shooter without a gun! It plays a lot like Metal Gear Solid where you have to sneak around and crack people’s necks from behind, hide them from fellow soldiers, and find weapons such as shivs or crowbars to fight off the prison guards. For the time, the graphics were phenomenal and it makes me want to play the sequel “Dark Athena” on either PS3 or 360. Two lesser-known titles I enjoyed were on Sega CD of Hook and 3 Ninjas Kick Back (lame movie, somewhat fun game!)

Two of the worst video games of all-time are based on movies: Bill and Ted’s Excellent Video Game Adventure on NES and Bram Stoker’s Dracula on Sega CD. I liked the Bill and Ted movies, but for the video game I could never make it pass the stupid phone booth as a kid or even when I had the chance to try it again when I was 18! Bram Stoker has the worst soundtrack (a really annoying and grating wind sound) of any video game, clunky controls, and ugly graphics for a 16-bit title.

Matt: I would definitely say GoldenEye was the best videogame based on a movie. I

also liked the Jurassic Park game for Sega Genesis. It was cool that you could decide whether you wanted to be a human or a dinosaur. I know The Simpsons was a TV show that became a movie later but I do have to mention how great the arcade version of that was. Too bad other games were made for it that really sucked. I didn’t really mind the Independence Day game for Sega Saturn and PlayStation that much. It wasn’t that great of a game, but I didn’t mind it. It’s just where you're a jet and fight the alien spaceships, not a real complex game. I have to say most games based off movies do suck, as we all know.

CharlieCat views Goldeneye on Nintendo 64 as the best movie-based video game and wished to skip out on this question. In substitution, he will be answering the best and worst video game-based movie. To view STVO’s and Matt’s opinions, check the comment section following this read.

CharlieCat: Without hesitation Resident Evil is the best video game adapted to film. The movie followed the story of the game well enough so it wasn't unrecognizable (cough, Super Mario Bros, cough). The second one was decent but overall, lame. The third movie was pretty good but had nothing to do with the game series other than the female lead from the first game. I enjoyed Silent Hill, although many fans and non-fans of the game hated it. The Mario Brothers movie was pretty awful. It's been a long time but I remember just wanting to hurt myself to distract myself from how bad the movie was. Barf!

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That's the end of this week's edition of Crosstopix! Once again, thanks to Matt and Charlie for participating on this week's edition! Be sure to read the first response in the comments section for STVO and Matt's opinion on movies based on video games. Next week's guest, Joel Partridge, comic book fan, who will discuss Iron Man 2, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, the Top 5 Comic Books, and more! In the meantime, follow CrossTopix on Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter. Have a great week!