Purging John Carpenter

Warning - This post is rife with spoilers!

 

I'm a big fan of the Purge movies, and am looking forward to seeing the newest one, Election Day.  When I watched the first film, I remember thinking, "This is the most John Carpenter-like film I've seen of the new John Carpenter wannabes."  I thought the same thing about the even-better sequel.  They carry on Carpenter's great strengths - pounding synth scores and completely batshit-insane, yet brilliantly simple, central concepts.  On reflection, though, I realized it wasn't just the music or the stories that reminded me of Carpenter films... They're actually remarkably step-by-step remakes, with new titles. 

Consider:

Assault on Precinct 13 - A traumatized man seeks shelter inside a fortified station which comes under waves of attacks from subhuman gang members. There is a focus on race relations as the black captain and the white convict must cooperate to survive, gaining mutual respect in the process.

The Purge - A traumatized man seeks shelter inside a fortified home which comes under waves of attacks from subhuman Young Republicans. There is a focus on race relations as the white family must decide whether to sacrifice the black victim to save themselves.  

In neither movie do we learn much of anything about the primary target - He's simply there as a magnet to draw down the wrath of the horde.  Assault gives us a middle-class Average White Guy, who attracts the gang's attention by shooting one of their members in anger over the death of his daughter.  We don't know who he is, why he was there, and he's virtually mute for the rest of the film.  The Purge is even simpler - We're given zip about the main target except that he's a black man of lower social class, and presumably that's all that's needed to make him a target for the rich kid psychopaths.  

 

The interesting thing is the total inversion of the villains. In Assault, it's two working class men defending the middle class against the zombie-like attacks of a subhuman street gang - Characterless, near-mindless killing machines that are invading the safe neighborhoods. In Purge, it's wealthy people with consciences defending the lower class and themselves from the psychotic attacks of... their own young. Assault fears the street gangs consuming the working class, Purge fears the upper class consuming itself and the lower class both.  It's a testament to the times and the decades between the films that there simply is no middle class in the Purge movies.  Everyone is either the wealthy or the working poor or homeless. 

Also diverging are the final messages - Assault is ultimately a much more positive film, despite its grimness.  In Assault, the black guy and the white guy, the hardworking policeman and the "gentleman criminal", come together in understanding and realize that their values are far closer than the creatures they're fighting.  When Bishop insists that Napoleon not be chained, and that they walk out to meet the dawn together, it's a triumphant moment.  The values of hardworking decency have been defended, and even though Napoleon is going back to jail, you understand that the day is won for civilization, for the moment.

Purge is very similar in structure - The black man sides with the white family and in the end, saves those who sheltered him.  The victorious survivors walk out to meet the new day in an almost identical ending scene, except... in Purge-Land, there is no victory.  The chasm between the wealthy family and the poor guy remains, and now the wealthy family realizes the depth of the hate and loathing and jealousy that their own "kind" have for them also.  They've survived the night, but they're living in a nest of people who all want to kill them, just because they're perceived to have a little bit more than the next wealthiest household.  There's no real victory, and only a thin veneer of icy smiles and cocktail parties will cover the seething violence that's being held in check until the next Purge Night.

They make for a fascinating comparison, back to back.  If time and interest permit, look for a follow-up post to this on the virtually identical storylines of The Purge 2: Anarchy and Escape from New York.

Mad Max - Fury Road

NetFlix NA
IMDB 8.2/10
My Rating: 6/10


The internets have been going crazy with gaga reviews of this for some time now, and I finally got to see it last night.  Sadly, I'm going to have to go with the counter opinion.  I thought it was entertaining but overdone, and like way too many modern movies, instead of presenting an absorbing story it just tried to pummel you into submission with constant action, which to me is actually boring when I don't really care much about any of the characters.  Which I didn't, really, because I thought Hardy's Max was a poor substitute for Gibson's, and I also wasn't particularly engaged by the fact that he was the sidekick in his own movie. 

Before I get into specifics, I want to point out that it seems like every review I've read has either been glowing praise about it for its theoretical "feminist narrative", or hostile MRA guys complaining that a chick was the star.  I don't give a shit about either of these political hoophole positions, I just wanted it to be good, but for me it was lacking.   Like, I don't care that Max took a backseat to a woman, but I was annoyed that Max had no arc, no skills, and basically contributed virtually nothing to the movie other than to be a victim and tag-along passenger, all to a secondary character who was not the character I sat down with popcorn to see.  It was like going to a Batman movie and having the whole movie be about Commissioner Gordon instead. 

My #1 complaint was the constant barrage of action.  Stuff happening constantly, all over the screen, and I just tuned out after a while.  Good action films have rhythm like music, with lulls and plot and just normal stuff that makes the action stand out when it happens.  This was all action, and the result was much like the hour long battle in Man of Steel - I just stopped caring much about what was happening because it was constantly "EVERYTHING IS EXPLODING AND EVERYONE IS ALMOST DYING IN ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME!!!"

It's entirely possible my opinion may be influenced because I just recently rewatched the original Mad Max and then Road Warrior, in anticipation of seeing Fury Road. 

Lots of spoilers to follow...

OK, I've often said the original Mad Max was kind of bleh, in that it's a generic revenge story and really only has two great action scenes, at the start and at the end.  On rewatch, though, it's disturbing in a way the sequels aren't.  It's apocalypse-in-progress rather than post-apocalypse, and there's something quite unsettling about the weird combination of society clearly falling apart at the edges, and normal people still trying to carry on normal lives.  Roadside diners are open, garages work normally, families go on vacation, etc, yet at the same time, the bikers are free to maraud and there are No-Go zones within easy reach.  Anyway, it was better than I remembered.  Also, it's all clearly about Max, whose arc IS the narrative.  He's the best driver in the MFP and a happy family man with friends untill things go bad and he becomes a cold-hearted killer.

Road Warrior still has Max as the central guide, and this time his arc goes from being an empty, soulless husk to actually wanting to help out other human beings again. 

The fundamental difference between Gibson's Max and Hardy's Max is that Gibson's has the skills to make him a heroic protagonist.  He suffers a lot of shit but ultimately he's still the best driver on the road, summed up handily in RW when, even mangled and battered and barely standing, he tells Papagello, "I'm the best chance you've got" for driving the rig.

Compare:

Fury Road opens with a traumatized Max being immediately chased down, easily wrecked and captured and victimized.  He spend the first half hour of the movie tied to a bumper, and has no personality at all.

Road Warrior opens with Max being pursued by superior numbers, and using his excellent driving skills ("RE-flexes, that's what you've got!"), he dispatches every car that's after him.  Then, in the same running time, we see that he has a heart (buried) via the wind-up music box, that he's cunning (His encounter with the Gyro Captain), ruthless, very intelligent, and basically an all-around cool character. 

This is better Max:

 

By the point in the running time when Fury Road is still showing us big CG landscapes and vistas and constant action, Road Warrior has given us a relatable hero with a plan, a sense of conscience, and a lot of skill to back it up.  Fury Road's Max was a steering wheel holder, a guy who just got stuck in the middle of someone else's story and clung on for dear life, and didn't bring any particular skills to the story.  RW's Max was a guy with a plan who was the only dude who could help the refinery people, and his determination and stupid-fast driving skill ended up making him an accidental hero.  Like Eastwood's Man with No Name, he's in it for himself, but still gets the good guy job done.

Voila:

Finally, I missed the humor.  RW is actually a fairly funny movie, often unexpectedly so, and yeah it's black humor but it still has laughs.  Particularly the Gyro Captain and the running gag with Max's shotgun:

Bottom line - I did enjoy Fury Road.  I didn't think it was as good as Road Warrior, though, nor was it "the ultimate action movie ever made" as many of the reviews have claimed.  

Space Monsters ATTACK!

Sadly, this is NOT the title of a great new movie I'm reviewing, but maybe it's something even better - An all-new magazine devoted to classic science fiction and fantasy films!  The style and look should be familiar to everyone who grew up on battered issues of Starlog, way back when, and I suspect that diving into it will provoke more than a few happy childhood memories.  Even better, Yours Truly has a couple of articles in the first issue and a little comic strip, so if you want to help support my writing in a printed mag, be sure and head over to their website to order a copy!

To celebrate this occasion and help promote this venture, I put together a little interview with Space Monsters publisher Richard Gladman on his favorite films, his love of this genre, and why he felt crazy enough to take on a project like this...

For starters, tell me a little bit about your existing blog(s), your Cyberschizoid page, etc.  How long have you been doing this?

I started writing the Cyberschizoid blog way back in 2008 then added the Cyberschizoid group on Facebook and a Twitter account to build the brand. The word “cyberschizoid” is even in the Urban Dictionary! After this I started the Classic Horror Campaign to try and encourage the BBC to bring back their iconic horror double bill seasons and bring classic sci-fi and horror films to a wider and younger audience. This led to the successful Frighten Brighton classic horror film festival in my home town co-hosted by Horror Host and scream queen Emily Booth. 

So, you decided to create your own magazine.  What was the big nudge that pushed you into this?  And what is your plan to make it successful, given how many print magazines seem to be dying off these days?

I’ve always wanted to have my own magazine ever since I was a little kid drawing my own comics and monster magazines. When I was 10 years old I didn’t want to be a train driver, I wanted to be Dez Skinn (British magazine editor and publisher famous for House of Hammer and Starburst magazines)! I was encouraged by my friend Eric McNaughton who publishes We Belong Dead magazine and is a fellow classic horror enthusiast. The thing about print magazines is that in terms of numbers and variety, horror fans have never had it so good; there are more horror and sci-fi magazines being published now than ever before so print is not dead yet! For Space Monsters to be successful we need to have a good mix of articles, interviews, reviews and original artwork and to get the word out there that it exists! 

In connection to that last question, do you have plans for a digital version, perhaps for the iTunes subscription model?

Yes, there is a digital version in the works that should be available from Dead Good Newsstand soon. (http://deadgoodnewsstand.blogspot.co.uk/).

I'm sure putting together the first issue has been a learning experience.  What was the biggest pleasant surprise, and what was the most unexpected and/or unpleasant discovery?

The biggest pleasant surprise was the amount of help and goodwill I have received from talented people all across the world – in many ways making Space Monsters a joy to produce. Unpleasant discoveries? To be honest I try not to focus on the negatives so I can’t think of any off the top of my head.

I had a friend in the states who single-handedly published an award winning horror mag for many years (Deathrealm magazine, for whomever might be interested).  It pretty much ate his life.  Have you got plans for dealing with this?  Are you going to have a staff, or try to do it all yourself? Are you looking at this as a hobby project, or a future career?

I already have a whole bunch of people helping me so I don’t feel I’m coping with the project alone. Who knows what will happen in the future? I guess it depends on the success of the magazine and all the other pies I have my fingers in at the moment. Watch this space….

Tell me about why you chose to devote the magazine to classic SF and fantasy.

There are already so many magazines devoted to horror in all its forms and current sci-fi films and television but none that focus on classic sci-fi. Personally I prefer the classic eras and am becoming bored with the unimaginative CGI trash that comes from Hollywood these days so as a fan I’d rather read about the sci-fi movies and TV shows that I love.

What's your favorite spaceship if you had to pick one from movies between the years 1950 and 1980?  And is that roughly the year range you'll be focusing on in the magazine?

My all-time favourite spaceship is the Eagle from the Space:1999 TV show – a truly iconic design – beautiful! Space Monsters magazine will cover the silent era to the mid-eighties but I think the fifties thru the seventies will be concentrated on more as the true golden age of classic film and television sci-fi. 

On the same note, which classic SF alien would you LEAST want to be trapped on a spaceship with?  

The Blob! There’s just no escape or reasoning with that evil mound of jello is there?

Finally, the question everyone asks -  Name your top 5 classic SF films, and tell me why for each.

OK, in no particular order –

1. GOJIRA (1954) – I am obsessed with giant monster movies and kaiju in particular. This film introduced the world to a legend and begat so many fun sequels – and I just love sequels! Unlike most of the films that followed, Gojira is a very serious and sombre piece with a message; very moving and incredibly well shot. I simply cannot fault this film.
2. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1978) – When all the other kids were still crazy about Star Wars I was much more intrigued by this much scarier, more grown-up science-fiction film. Typically, I loved the film that my friends and the public weren’t quite so keen on – always supporting the underdog!
3. INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956) – Combining horror and sci-fi, my two favourite genres, I found this film really scary when I was a kid and the story is still frightening now. I think they could remake it every decade until the end of time and it would always be relevant.
4. THE THING (1982) – I never tire of watching this movie for its astonishing special effects, great acting and terrifying story. I have fond memories of seeing this on the big screen in London when I was very underage; my friends couldn’t get in as they didn’t look old enough so I think they went to see Indiana Jones instead!
5. PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1959) – I love anything cheesy and trashy and Ed Wood was a genius! This film is so iconic and entertaining and I had the pleasure of seeing this on a late night show at the gorgeous Duke of Yorks cinema in Brighton. Happy days….

There are so many others that probably could have made the list – Forbidden Planet, Alien, THEM!, Planet of the Apes, The Time Machine…so many classic movies! 

Annnd... That's a wrap!  Now all Richard's mates know to get him an Eagle model kit for Christmas and to chase him around in Blob costumes every Halloween.  I hope you've enjoyed this little peek behind the scenes, and be sure to - 

ORDER a COPY!

Tranzor's "The Thing"

Recently I've been sending some time browsing at fanedit.org, a site dedicated to amateurs re-editing their favorite movies for various reasons - Sometimes improvement, sometimes drastic alteration, and sometimes just fun tinkering.  This is a case of the latter, and it's a generation-targeted nostalgia missile in the extreme.  You see, what fan editor "Tranzor" has done is not try to improve John Carpenter's 1982 classic The Thing in any way - Instead, he has transformed it into an edited-for-television late 70's Midnight Movie.

Before I go on, a word about legality.  Fan edits exist in a weird sort of murky grey zone in copyright law - It is legal to make them and it is legal to watch them and it is legal to own them... provided you actually own the original DVD as well.  So, while I can download this fan edit with impunity, someone who didn't own the original DVD would essentially be committing a file sharing copyright breach by downloading it, which is why I'm not posting any download links with this article.  If you want to see this yourself... Well, let's just say that Google is your friend.  That said, on with the show!

Remember the late night monster movie?  There was the news at 11, then Benny Hill or Monty Python, then some sort of late night horror movie in edited-for TV mode, usually something from the 50's.  For all the talk about the "grindhouse" theater experience, this sort of midnight movie had its own strange charms - Missing reels, terrible film quality, choppy cuts, dropped-out profanity, etc.  What this fan editor has done is to recreate this experience with The Thing.  The movie is reformatted into 4:3 and changed to B&W, with a few other tweaks here and there.  You know you're in for fun when you put the disc in...

Right after an intro that will throw you straight back to age 12, you start realizing that this is going to be a wholly different "Thing" viewing experience:

The funny thing about this is how GOOD the movie looks in black and white - The setting is pretty timeless and with the color and the cussing gone, you could almost think you were watching a genuine 1957 drive-in classic.  It's funny how some films time-travel well and others do not.  We were watching the original Alien the other night and it could have been shot last week - Other than some amusing computer nostalgia (A text-prompt green screen monitor on a starship), the look and style were timeless.  Compare it to something like Logan's Run, which immediately says, "1975-1978" really loudly.  I wouldn't have thought that The Thing could get more brooding, but then I saw it in B&W:

There's a great irony here that I've spent most of my adult life avoiding commercials, and yet the commercial breaks in this are the highlight of the experience.  You'll be totally into the movie and then it will hit a crisis point and BAM! - Commercial cutaway:

I haven't watched commercials since the day I got my first VCR - I'm a little hostile to the messages advertisers try to shout at us.  I don't mind informative advertising, but 99% of TV commercials amount to either, "Use our product or no one will ever have sex with you!" or, "Use our product because all our competition sucks."  Thanks, but no thanks.  However, in this case the nostalgia factor wins out, and I'm sitting there watching original 1977 commercial blocks all over again, filled with cheery disco music and ads for Tab cola.

Yes, Tab has even less calories than water.  Never knew THAT, did you, you fatty water drinkers...
Overall, this DVD is a blast, right down to its custom printable DVD case cover.  If you have fond memories of staying up for the late movie, then watching it in wide-eyed childish terror and running to the kitchen for snacks during the commercial breaks, then this is an experience to love.  If you were born after, say, 1978, then I suspect you'd only find this confusing - A bizarre re-edit of a great move for no understandable purpose.  Like the man says, ya just had to be there...

KFP salutes Forgotten Fiends - Dargent Peytraud

Everybody knows the big guys - Myers, Dracula, the Mummy, the Wolfman, Freddy.  They have their own franchises, their own toys, and worldwide recognition.  The KFP "Forgotten Fiend" awards, however, are dedicated to the guys who didn't end up with action figures...  Who were in only one movie and yet their presence was so memorable that they MADE the movie.  The ones about whom you go away thinking, "Damn, that was a great villain!"

My first entry into this category is this guy, Zakes Mokae.  Or as I will always remember him, Dargent Peytraud from The Serpent and the Rainbow, a favorite horror movie of mine and one of the few Wes Craven flicks that I actually like.  In Serpent, Peytraud is the Bad Guys' Bad Guy - Scheming, brilliant, devious, mischievous, and often downright terrifying.  Even more frightening is the fact that he personifies the sort of depersonalized, bored government sadism typical of despotic regimes and French administration.  He's not out to control the world, just to keep Haiti held together with an iron fist, and if you threaten to upset his applecart even one iota, hold onto your nuts!

I'm hard to scare in horror movies - The Exorcist girl did nothing for me, Freddy and Jason are just goofy, and the less said about franchise characters like Chucky and the Leprechaun, the better.  When I look back over my movie history, I can really only think of a few movie villains that genuinely creeped me out.  There was the Tall Man from Phantasm, Max Schreck in Nosferatu, the ghosts in The Fog, the original Michael Myers, that thing at the end of [REC], and a few others... and among them is Zakes Mokae's Peytraud, the guy who can say, "See you in your dreeeeeeems, blanc" and really mean it.

I love a lot of things about Peytraud.  I love the way he talks.  I love the way he says, "Dreeeems".  I love the way he depersonalizes the hero as merely, "Blanc"...  Just one more annoyance to be swatted out of the way, unless you really irritate him enough to give you his full attention, and you really, really don't want that.  Dracula might toss you around and drink your blood, and the Alien might spray acid on you, but Peytraud will hammer a nail through your testicles just to convince you he's serious.  Throughout the whole movie, he marvelously communicates the aura of the guy that you simply do NOT screw around with.

His sense of mounting menace helps.  At first meet, you think he's just a bureaucrat, pushing papers at the ministry and being suitably brusque to foreigners messing in his country.  But hero "Doctah Alan" finds out quickly that Peytraud is no pushover to be intimidated by the presence of an American in his Third World.  The interactions between Bill Pullman and Mokae are electric and Mokae dominates every scene he's in.  For the actors around him, it's like trying to do "Death of a Saleman" starring William Shatner - You just know that everyone's looking at THAT guy, no matter what you do.

Peytraud is no one dimensional comicbook villain, though.  Probably what makes him so memorably scary and so freaky is his sense of demented fun - Sending a voodoo ritual into chaos for idle kicks and making people into zombies just for the hell of it.  He's not just frightening when he hammers in that nail, he's enjoying it - This is him finally getting to unwind and have some good times.  And later, when the hero realizes there's just no escaping the guy...  That he's perfectly happy to reach across the world just to fuck with his mind...  Well, that really caps him off as an ideal villain.  When he notices you, run.

It's a shame we never saw this guy again.  Serpent was never going to be a franchise (This was back in the magical days when every single property that came out was not necessarily immediately vetted for franchise and toy marketing potential).  But that's probably best - Overexposure would only have diluted his menace and malice, Freddy Krueger-style, until he became a shadow of his original self.  I'm quite happy that he's a perfect one-time villain and he can easily stand alongside the famous "movie monsters".  I can say with certainty that I would MUCH rather have to face off with Jason than Peytraud.  At least Jason will only kill me.  So thanks, Zakes, for giving us one of the best underappreciated villains in horror films!

And if you want to see a clip of just what makes this guy so amazing, watch and shudder.  He wants to hear you SCREEEM, blanc.

Chime.in

A Kentucky Fried Popcorn Christmas

Like a freezing arctic wind, Christmas is coming for your sssssssoul...


I used to be a Christmas curmudgeon, and hated the season with a passion for its overload and its commercialism.  I feel a lot different about it these days, and decided to celebrate here in the pages of Ye Olde KFP with a two month deluge of holiday films to make you squeak like a mouse on a downhill sled.  We'll have seasonal thrills, chills, a horror flick or two, and enough saccharine-flavored family fare to choke a Southern Baptist.  What will happen when Yours Truly has to sit through movies like "Kuffy Koala's Very Special Christmas"?  I don't know... yet.  But I promise to do my best to give you some groove-tastic reviews of everything we watch, for as long as I can take it.

There will be the usual drive-in flicks mixed in too, because there's no way in hell I can survive watching two months of Made-for-TV Hallmark films without breaking them up with some bouts of insane mass murder... and I'll probably watch some horror movies also.  I don't know how much time I'll have to devote to this wee project, but I do want to at least try to share some obscure holiday films that I happen to love, like 70's gem Black Christmas, Spain's wicked little 80's homage A Christmas Tale, Joulutarina (Maybe the best Santa Claus story ever put on film), forgotten classics like Come to the Stable, and modern indie fables like Midnight Clear (A bleak little movie that's virtually the anti-Christmas film, yet still manages to have one of the most honest Christmas messages you can find).  And also, I am absolutely going to give the film The Christmas Box the public beat-down it deserves for being one of the most utterly wretched and insulting holiday movies ever committed to celluloid.

So.  Christmas is coming.  Join me over the next two months for some black humor, some holiday horror, and occasionally even an actual inspirational movie sifted out of the 800 pound sacks of glitter and frosting.

PS - By the way, you may notice some small changes here at KFP other than the seasonal logo up top.  Our Tumblr page and links are gone.  I gave up on Tumblr - The lack of ability to interact with followers really killed it for me, and since I'm already spread over Facebook and G+ and Twitter, it just wasn't worth maintaining one more social network.  In its place I've added a G+ widget to help you find my G+ page if you're interested in following any of the random oddness I dribble. 

Editorial - Looking to the Future

I have this time machine here, see?  I've had it since I was a kid back in 1977, and I've played with it quite a bit over the years (Though I must deny all involvement regarding created alternate timelines, per legal counsel).  Sometimes I use it to look at the future, to see how things are going and where they will go.  The other night I was feeling a bit bored, so I had a look at a broadcast of Entertainment Tonight from 2023:

"So here we are tonight talking to the hottest new director in Hollywood, McPhat, about this summer's biggest movie, Green Lantern 5:  The PosterTrailer.  Tell us all about it, McPhat!"

"Well, Tom, we knew we'd pushed the limits pretty far with GL4: A Ton of CGI Shit, so where do you go from that?  WHERE do you go, I ask?  What I've made here is, I truly believe, the first genuinely post-modern cinematic experience.  GL5: The PosterTrailer is an epic, broadband, cross-marketable masterpiece that combines the latest in modern technology with cloud-based virtualization of the hottest intellectual property trademarks to provide the ultimate mass media, multi-pronged consumer experience."

"What's this film about, McPhat?"

"Film?  No, no, you Philistines are missing the point!  There's no FILM here.  Our test markets all tell us that audiences today are concerned with just two things, a movie's poster and its trailer.  Put out a great poster and an FX-showcase trailer and they'll eat it up and talk about it on the internet for months.  Beyond that, GL5 will be an avalanche of multimedia crossover - There's the MMORPG, multiple console games, an Angry Birds/Green Lantern mashup game for the iPad 7, the soundtrack, the Mauve-Ray 3D virtual experience...  Green Lantern fans are going to LOVE it, and the general public will too!"

"So...  There is no actual movie?"

"You HAVE to stop thinking so Twentieth Century, Tom.  Plot, characters, story - These are all passé, the modern audience is SO beyond these things now.  Who has time to watch a two hour movie?  In fact, our marketing department is even telling us we'll need to cut our trailer runtime for GL6: Send us your money again for the same goddamn thing because today's movie-watching public just can't spare that full 5 minutes - Even with an image strobe-flashing every .26 seconds, surveys tell us the consumer's mind starts to drift after 3.7 minutes.  And I am SO not about boring movies, man.  The name McPhat stands for EXCITEMENT!"

"But your movie has a 400 million dollar budget.  What does the money go for, if it's not an actual film?"

"Tom, Tom, the shareholders deserve their profits from what the movie will make, don't you agree?  You're not a communist, are you?  And also, there's the director to pay!"

"Ummm...  So can you tell us anything about the tie-in videogame?"

"Absolutely.  It will be a 3D FPS, where the player will run, fly and drive around levels trying to shoot enemies with his green power ring before they can shoot him.  I'm overseeing the whole thing.  It will be a revolution in gaming!  Also, there are cutscenes."

"And what is your next project going to be, McPhat?"

"An all-CGI remake of It's a Wonderful Life starring our full-body scans of Megan Fox as every character.  Right now, our best FX team is working on a staggering 49,300 special effects shots for the three minute trailer, including an extra $59 million dollar budget dedicated to the flying digital shark battle alone.  It will be epic."

"Thank you for your time, Mister McPhat.  This summer sure sounds exciting to me!"

And that's why I don't use my time machine to look into the future very often.