With a nod to Prof Mort's alias, I'd like to hear your sequel confessions. Which subsequent entry of a film did you prefer to the original (or, in the same vein, which rip-off of an existing film), and the more "against the grain"/outrageous, the better. RE: rip-offs - This is a bit of a gray area. I would say that you should hone closer to the Grizzley/Jaws rip-off formula (a direct lift of the plot), rather than a Dawn of the Dead/Every Italian Zombie movie made after it comparison. But feel free to compare and contrast and make your case.

My confession is rather minor in retrospect, but I definitely enjoyed Any Which Way You Can more than Every Which Way But Loose. I suspect William Smith played a large part in this.

EDIT TO ADD & REQUEST: I just realized I put this in the Random Thread. Perhaps it should be moved to the Movie Thread... Sorry about that....

Boy sometimes I dig mod power.

In the vein of your suggestion, I do like Zack Snyder's version of Dawn of the Dead a little better than I like George Romero's original version of Dawn of the Dead.

Let me hasten to add that I love both and, on a social commentary/intellectual scale, Romero's work is the better of the two.

But in terms of connecting emotionally with the characters and feeling the full impact of the tragedy befalling them throughout the movie, I was far more affected by the events in the re-make than in the original. It is despair in a true form and it tears me up as bad things continue to happen to these characters. The beginning and ending are powerful - I adore the choice of The Man Comes to Town to open the credits of this movie.

I think I honestly enjoy Ace Ventura 2: When Nature Calls more than Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. I know that even the admission that I like both of these makes my tastes immediately suspect (to which I would counter that if you were a 13-year-old American male in 1995 and didn't have at least some fondness for these, something is amiss), and yes, the budget clearly took a huge dive on the second outing, and there was indeed an overreliance on that sorest of comedy bromides (sodomization of the villain by a large mammal), but...come on! The raccoon parody of Cliffhanger at the beginning? The robot rhino-birthing? Tommy Davidson's finest cinematic performance ("It's in the bone! It's in the bone...")? So much better than transsexual Sean Young and a wooden Dan Marino cameo.

I adore the Cliffhanger parody. Doesn't the sequel also feature Ace Ventura getting his hair done like a devil by an bizarre african tribe in an hysterical wrestling contest?

I'm with this more than BJ is: I much prefer the remake to the original. As good a social commentary the original is, I don't think it's a great movie.

Yep. "Let guess, they just said 'White Devil White Devil?" "Ace! You speak Wachutu?" And then he tries to shake off the "devil" image to the least possible success.

Van Helsing was the moment I realized how sincere my love of b-movies was. I couldn't tell if I liked it for being bad or if I think it's any good. I don't know if Beckinsale is awesome or ghastly. It just is. Incidentally, that's 6 months AFTER I became a regular.

UPN's New New Twilight Zone did a remake of "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street". They changed the twist, and I thought it worked surprisingly well.
They also did a sequel to "It's a Good Life" which was not bad until the final twist.

I love the live action Speed Racer movie, but hate the old cartoon.

I knew I was drawn to you for some reason. The bit with the slideshow of the villains where Ace is doing obscene shadow things to the major baddie never ceases to leave me gasping trying to get my breath back from laughing, and who doesn't love a monster truck?

I think the Spiderman movies are crimes against cinema, largely because they forgot to cast capable leads.

I think that the Platinum Dunes version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is an atrocious bit of trash, but that their Friday the 13th is hellishly entertaining crap.

I think that Joss Whedon is excellent at creating charachters people give a rat's ass about. He's great at writing dialogue for them. Now if only someone would forbid the man from designing his own plotlines. Every single time he writes himself into a corner, he kills a charchter. I'm getting kinda tired of that. I wonder who will die in the Avengers flick?

I firmly believe that some movies are neither distinctly good, nor bad - they're entertaining crap.

I also very much enjoyed the Speed Racer movie, rather more than what I've seen of the staid cartoon.

How about this one? I like Ghostbusters 2 more than Ghostbusters, and always have.

While I enjoy the original Gojira well enough, in a way, I rather like many of the campier sequels more, at least for rewatching value. That includes Godzilla's Revenge.

I like PHANTASM 2 better than PHANTASM.

News to nobody, but I think Howard the Duck is genuinely awesome. Funny, exciting, great SFX, fab score, Lea Thompson in her undies and rocking out onstage... I need nothing more from a movie.

I kind of agree, in that I don't completely break out in hives when I watch Godzilla's Revenge. It uses so much footage from the movies that precede it that its almost - almost, that is - like watching a Godzilla's Greatest Hits picture. It certainly is action-y.