Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho is now a long distant memory for most of us; relegated to a few dusty message boards where some still try to rationalize the Zen-like stupidity of a director wanting to remake a film exactly as it was first made. Now Hitchcock aficionados have the ultimate project to dread - Michael Bay does The Birds?
I don't give my rat's ass if he's not directing it. His baby Platinum Dunes, who could not even manage to successfully re-imagine ONE of the three classic slashers (Bubba, Jason or Freddy) to a standard that resulted in something the majority of viewers liked or thought was worthy; have had a big budget production of The Birds on the cards. This 3-D craptacular has now been pushed back a third time to 2013 according to the most popular sources. Prolonging the inevitable is silly. Surely they can take a page from the ultimate failure that was 1994's The Birds 2 - Land's End, which Halloween 2 Director Rick Rosenthal could not even bring himself to attach his name to (enter Mr Alan Smithee!).
So I have chosen to give you a first hand look at the REAL horror of Hollywood. My prediction of things to come, ironically on a film that is a classic example of just that. A grim prediction. Here we go.
The Birds - 3-D Interactive! A serious parody review
Melanie D (Lady Gaga) is the number one social columnist in the Hills. Her weekly vlog column "Gone to the birds" exposes the world (but more importantly the greater Los Angeles area) to the hottest celebrity scandals, muff slips and meltdowns as they happen. The film opens with a hilarious short sequence of Melanie recording her latest video, an interview with Hollywood badboy Charlie Sheen, played ironically by himself! In the full definition of digital 3-D, his face looks like a haunted pizza base with 2 dead black olives in it.
Mitch "The switch" Brenner (George Clooney) is a slick corporate lawyer who is too busy winning the important cases to have time for romance. His latest case sees him embroiled in a battle to sue an infants school who actually encouraged young children to draw their own versions of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, tainting these timeless cartoon characters with their childish re-imaginings; without paid permission. The resulting victory against the St. Agnes of Rome Volunteer Infants School for the Blind and Spastic nets millions for Disney and leaves Mitch the Switch on a well deserved vacation at the finest destination he can think of - his own luxury mega-mansion which recently replaced the quaint town of Bodega Bay. The crowning achievement of this futuristic super-estate is Birdland, the animatronic theme park crammed with robotic examples of every bird species, because Brenner really likes birds for some unexplained reason. Who cares, these things look AWESOME! SO much scarier than actual nature. It's better. Trust me. And the name was a true original, it had only ever been used by some black musicians playing alleged "jazz".
The two meet at one of Birdland's regular weekend parties, in the lovebird exhibit (a subtle wink to the original film! If you look closely in this sequence, you can see Seth Rogen dressed as Hitchcock subtly tweeting on his ipad 4. Tweeting.... birds.... this shit works on so many fucking levels, it's Inception times a hundred million). They fall instantly in love and plan to combine their talent and wealth to form the perfect team! She will keep digging up dirt on people, and he will sue them when they try to protect their own privacy! The perfect match is obvious, Gaga and Clooney's 50 foot egos on the enormous Imax 3-D screen almost look larger than real life. The resulting duet they sing at the end of the party, "Peck out my eyes (for love is blind)" becomes quite ironic in the next scene. It's almost like they gave it that name intentionally.
A sudden burst of dramatic music shatters the ears of the audience as the focus turns to a slow pan over a sleek, black ravenbot that appears to be malfunctioning. A small screen on the ravenbots techno-control collar displays the ominous message that can barely be read before the relief of the dramatic zoom to a glowing red flashing display which reads "MALFUNCTION IN PROGRESS".
Then two ravenbots start to flash red. (now for some magic that Hitchcock simply didn't have the rendering skills to achieve - his movie was good, but you must surely admit the graphics were terrible) - Then four. Then all sixteen thousand birdbots all at once! The blood-curdling cacophonous banshee wail that emanates from Gaga's mouth upon seeing this spectacle should surely have her at least nominated for a Grammy.
The next 56 minutes were kind of confusing and made me dizzy. Many flashing cut shots of beaks striking and steel feathers sparking and Clooney's eyes got pecked out (SEE?) and no one could stop them and I think there was a secret Gaga muffslip shot but it was so brief I may be mistaken and it may have been a mangled dead bird. Bot.
An eyeless and surprisingly still very dapper Clooney, on his final breath, finds the perfect solution to end this ungodly siege of naturebots taking their revenge. Via his battered ishoe still hanging off his one remaining foot, Mitch the Switch tweets via Melanie B's account that birdbots are popular with stupid young people, and the enjoyment they get from this harmless gimmicky creature should be derided and used as fuel for hatred and discrimination by older people who should know better on every network available, including the physical destruction of the creatures themselves. The tweet reads
*spoiler alert*
"Birdbotz is emolame, raep and keel birdbotz lul"
Melanie B seems confused at first, she almost looks as though she may ask why he didn't call the police or the army, and then a rumble. Then a slightly louder rumble. Then a MEMBRANE-TEARING THUNDEROUS ROAR as the millions of e-haters descend on the birdbots and claim victory for the greater good of LA, which this week is the endangered Revolvimoe of Scislacs, a rare creature from the Anagram forest of Australia.
The closing credits are actually the new video clip for Gaga's tie-in single "Flapping around like a feather-head", featuring breakdancing birdbots, outrageous costumes, and a neat and funny trick where Clooney puts grapes in his dead eye sockets, it's by far the highlight of his career, and I don't usually give out high ratings!
10 out of 5.
So there you have it folks, by far my silliest parody, and definitely the one revealing the most hidden bitterness! I hope you enjoyed reading.
Till next time
Ratty
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