BEVERLY HILLS COP was fun and fresh for it's time and it certainly capitalized on Eddie Murphy at JUST the right moment in his career, there's no question about that. The only problem was COP 2 then suffered from classic sequelitis of being TOO overblown ("We need even MORE gunfights this time!") and repeating TOO many of the exact same beats and lines as the first ("They loved it before, they'll love it again!") And then along came the third one which just felt like everyone was going through the motions for a quick paycheck, though worst of all it felt like they weren't even TRYING to make it good.

Frankly, on paper and given the way that Hollywood suits tend to think, the idea of turning over the COP franchise (if we can call it that) to RUSH HOUR Ratner seems somewhat logical. I'm sure right now there's a delusional studio exec popping open a bottle of champagne and saying, "This is gonna be gold, baby! GOLD!" Well, drink up, buddy. Because when this comes out and bombs, you'll be needing a good stiff drink when you see the box office returns and realize that no one gives a shit about this or is dying to see it brought back.

awww....they did...okay...how about:

My name is Judge! Judge, my name? Is.

And "Superman Returns" proved that Bryan Singer GOT LUCKY with X-Men 2.

Yuck.

The movie should open with Axel being busted by a uniformed cop while sitting in a car with a tranny... revealing that he's actually on a stakeout with Judge Reinhold in drag! Oh, Komedy gold.

Sheer entertainment genius.

"Did you do the litmus configuration?"

So, please, stop defending PG-fucking-13. It ruined too many great movies already...

Martin Brest rocks because he gave us Midnight Run. "You have two emotions, silence and rage."

Tony Scott rocks because he gave us True Romance. "Now, what we got here is a little game of show and tell. You don't wanna show me nothing but you're telling me everything."

And Ratner's OK because he gave us The Family Man which is Nic Cage's best stuff since he won an Oscar.

Martin Brest was what made Cop 1 so successful. He was more interested in the fish-out-of-water aspect than the shoot-shoot bang-bang.

Speaking of bad sequels that had promise because of the original, how about Another 48 Hours??

Like I said, I remember nothing about Another 48 Hours. I watched it a few months after it came out on video, as desperation even because there was nothing else on the shelf.

I guess my opinion was clouded by Robocop 2, Total Recall, Goodfellas, Misery, Blind Fury, King of New York, I Come In Peace, Marked For Death, My Blue Heaven, State of Grace and Predator 2 which I watched previously that year.

The guy is living the dream life. He won't be remembered like Spielberg but he'll have spent a lifetime making movies, attending festivals (even if his own films never come within a mile of a festival), dating hot chicks and mingling with great actors.

Seriously, it's a sublime life he's indulging himself in.

You know what else was painful? Watching the "Entourage" episode with Ratner in it...poor Johnny Drama having to kiss his ass and the show making it out like Ratner's this big Hollywood guy who has a team of obnoxious assistants who refer to Ratner in an almost divine like quality. Same for Shamalyan (whatever) and his "scare" of Avi in the graveyard. It's that cheesy Hollywood take on the movie going audience...you know...the kind of take that thinks the average media-consumer has nightmares where Stephen King himself is trying to kill you and not the monsters he creates. So every time King shows up somewhere, he has to have this "creepy evil guy" thing to match the Hollywood notion of the perceived societal construct. Hence the Rat...making big bucks with huge properties with big name actors is now...out of the fucking blue....some Hollywood bighead so important and so huge "hip, chich, and cool!" that even a fictionalized account of his existence frustrates any detractors. Credit to the Rat...I've heard it was all played up and the whole glib Hollywood mega-celeb thing was more self-caricature than anything else. But still...watching the great Johnny Drama beg the Rat for anything was just painful for me to watch...and the Rat's "assistant" speaking of the Rat was also painful to watch....self-deprecating fictionalization or not!

And the general consensus on these TBs is that Robocop 2 was a ground breaking, mouth smashing, Frankenberry crapping hot lead fest that showed us all how delicious tasteless can be.

Nomoredirtyjokes: I thought Basic Instinct was before Recall? IMDB survey says...Total Recall was pre Basic Instinct! Ok...I stand corrected...she did indeed look good in Instinct. And knock Douglass all you want but last I checked he's still married to Catherine Zeta Jones. Altho I still never got the attraction to Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction...that's a MAN, baby!!! a MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!

My point was, the people who hate George Bush wouldn't want to be him. The same people who think Ratner is a talentless hack would be a Looney Tunes hole in the hall if given the opportunity to switch places with him.

TVguy: you know, that's a pretty good idea and I think one way they might get something like this to work...of course they wont do that tho.

And as far as BEING Ratner? Hmm..actually BE him just like that? Nah. But would I like to be me and have done the work he's done, made the money's he's made, get the projects he gets, and then magically have my own brain and whatever creativity I'm lucky to possess so I can turn around the opinion that "Ratner" (now bodily changed with me) is a hack! (or try anyway)

And I won't speak for other TB'ers anymore. All I know is a life as a third rate hackmeister is better than this status quo, mundane, Where's Waldo, paycheck to paycheck crapfest of a life I'm living.

All existence will now have meaning.

Am really curious to see what the Warchowski's follow up Speed Racer with and will moneybags Joel Silver continue to pave their way. I know Silver gets a lot of flack for his roster of bombastic junk, but the guy does have V For Vendetta, Matrix, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and the tv show Action to his credit.

Guys around here make Ratner out to be Uwe Boll's retarded brother. The Rush Hour series and Red Dragon might have been unfit to wipe your arse with, but krickey, they were no Bloodrayne or Dungeon Siege.

Still, he's living the dream so good on him.

And Remo Williams deserves a sequel. Fred needs the work. "The adventures begins" my ass.

Eddie Murphy's career couldn't be resuscitated if Jesus himself directed the movie.

And I'm going home.

The second was just overblown and over-bloated.

The third one totally sucked ass.

2)Jack Burton is the man. Unquestionably.

3)Memories- once again you are talking out of your ass. What the fuck do you know about media/ cocaine abuse? I'll take a large bet on nothing. Ratner does not do coke to make up for some gaping hole in his life. He doesn't do it because secretly he knows he's talentless. I'll bet he does it for 2 reasons (why the dog licks its balls)- Because he can, and now he has discovered he can he can't see any reason why not to. Drugs for Ratner are extremely available, and not at all taboo. Talented people do as much if not more drugs than hacks- RDJ, Amy Winehouse, Jimmy Hendrix, John Lennon, Keith Richards, Kurt Cobain, Jimmy Paige, Scorcese, and that's just off the top of my head. I'll tell you something about a comedown: you talk about their self-loathing, and the only way they can face themselves is to get smashed, but you haven't experienced real self-loathing until you've been on a comedown after a 3 day binge. It's a whole different thing. Of course, talent vacuums also do drugs (Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Brett Ratner, ). So stop talking crap.

4) this is a terrible idea. Full stop. But it can't be worse than the third part.

5)48 Hours is good, Another 48 Hours is OK. RObocop 2 is OK to poor, and Total Recall is the shit.

Right, that should have cleared that up.

To say otherwise is either an outright lie or a massive piece of self-delusion.

More Beastmaster = World Peace.

It's a proven fact.

Not recommended.

That was great. But Human Traffic is a good fucking movie.

I haven't seen Phantasm since it came out on video, like what, 20+ years ago?

Is Warwick Davis getting work these days?

So I was watching Lost last night and I thought to myself, Jeff Fahey is one of those guys I'm glad made a comeback. He was the best thing about Planet Terror and I remember enjoying him in some scholcky early 90s junkfest called Body Parts.

Somebody in Hollywood please pick up the phone and call Fred Ward. Remo needs a comeback. Cameo's on ER don't count.

I stick with alcohol, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.

But in all respect, Money Talks and the first two Rush Hour movies were by-the-numbers junk. Chris Tucker is horrible. I've never found anything he does funny. People around here crap all over Will Smith for always playing Will Smith, but Tucker is the biggest offender of any actor in the business of being a one-trick pony. He almost single-handedly ruined The Fifth Element. I personally didn't think X3 was the abortion other people did but regardless, Ratner didn't write it and had limited time and budget to work with. After The Sunset was a movie I had forgotten he directed and you're right, it was pretty good and another excuse to see Selma Hayek wearing next to nothing.

In closing, he's made three movies that range from OK to very good which is two more than Michael Bay has his name attached to.

Re:Phantasm..is there a DVD that is formatted for widescreen? Cuz that sounds like an ideal weekend rental.

Since marriage, jobs etc happened that shit is stricty out of bounds.