one time there were two magician movies

First Daughter (2004)
Chasing Liberty (2004)

Hoop Dreams
Poop Dreams

i always mix those up

Tombstone (1993)
Wyatt Earp (1994)

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DuelingWorks/Film

i seen one of the magician movies it was fucken stupid i can only imagine how fucken stupid the other magician movie is with alfie zulu in it

They're both okay, but the twist in the Edward Norton one is easy to guess, and since half of the movie rests on that "shocking" revelation, it kinda diminishes it. Whereas the the two major twists in the Christian Bale/Hugh Jackman one genuinely come out of the left field, which makes it more fun to watch, if not super memorable.

Can't remember the Norton one, but I guessed the Prestige twist and it didn't affect my enjoyment of it. Also I didn't know a certain cameo was going to be in it so that really made my day.

the prestige was so good.

There was even a third magician movie around the same time, by the peep show guys

Another borderline case:

The Truman Show (1998)
EDTV (1999)

Probably much too far apart to count but...
Porridge (1979)
Escape to Victory (1981)

Robin hoods

Famously there was a British Robin Hood film that ended up being completely eclipsed by prince of thieves

Xpost!

Feels weird to include that because there have probably been years when there have been like 7 Robin Hood films produced

War of the Worlds (2005) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407304/
The War of the Worlds (2005) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425638/
War of the Worlds (2005) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449040/

the first one is the Tom Cruise one, the second is the english version set at the same time as the book, the third is a knock-off rushed out on video ahead of the Cruise version to confuse people into buying it.

The General (1998)
Ordinary Decent Criminal (2000)

Both based on Irish gangster Martin Cahill

I thought it was normal to have certain themes be popular in certain years. Not sure what determines it , unless it is just competition within the industry. Or industries, do publishing houses do similar?

a second time there were two magician movies

the incredible burt wonderstone (2013)
now you see me (2013)

Because they were such anomalies at the time (two psycho-killer movies today wouldn't be notable), and because of the stature of the two directors, Psycho and Peeping Tom, both 1960.

I watched the British Robin Hood movie a few years ago, and it was really quite good, certainly better than Prince of Thieves. Possibly even the best Robin Hood feature film since the Errol Flynn era?

i kind of feel like

things to do in denver when you're dead (1995)
the usual suspects (1995)

should qualify but there were so many, so many tarantino knockoffs produced in the 90s that at least two of them would necessarily (emphasis) had to have bryan ferry, with his floppy, insouciant hair and sharply, elegantly disarrayed suits, as a former gangster trying to go straight but he's dragged back into the crimeworld for one last job to save his flailing enterprise but it goes disastrously wrong with an ensemble cast and interpersonal quibbling and banter that i'm not really sure if it does.

Another one that's maybe a bit of a stretch but I think fits: the two grand-diva movies of 1950, Sunset Boulevard and All About Eve.

California Split and The Gambler, 1974.

Catch-22 and MASH, 1970--not just war films, but a very specific kind of Strangelove absurdist black comedy.

Also both given a "not Vietnam, but we're really talking about Vietnam" gloss by their directors.

The Prestige has Bowie-as-Tesla in it
The Illusionist is a bad movie but has Philip Glass' best score ever

bridget jones' diary (2001)
legally blonde (200))

a blonde zaftig protagonist shows up at a party dressed in a bunny costume because they thought it was a costume party but it wasn't, but she wins the day despite things

The Illusionist wasn't even the best movie named The Illusionist in recent times

legally blonde also 2001, not 200)

Catch-22 and MASH, 1970--not just war films, but a very specific kind of Strangelove absurdist black comedy.

― clemenza, Friday, March 25, 2016 9:11 AM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

speaking of, Strangelove and Fail Safe prob fit

Lambada (1990)
The Forbidden Dance (1990)

Breakin' (1984)
Beat Street (1984)

Like Father Like Son (October 1987)
Vice Versa (March 1988)
Big (June 1988)

18 Again! (April 1988)

Style Wars
Wild Style

if wins the day wasn't an emo combo out of omaha circa 2004 that had a #27 alt rock chart hit with "i'm okay, stop asking" i'll seppuku myself

elaction (1999) was a fillum about a female secondary character that has a scene where she swings on a swing set to
represent the tension between lost youth /coming of age dynamics and i swear there was another contemporary joint that utilized the same device so they're the same movie but i can't remember what the other one was just now, but i randomly watched them in succession so it counts

Lambada (1990)
The Forbidden Dance (1990)

Breakin' (1984)
Beat Street (1984)

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, March 25, 2016 2:22 PM (20 minutes ago)

These are the two cousins who fell out, right? So the two competing films were at least intentional, w/ them trying to outdo each other.

The two Lambada movies actually came out on the same day! (Also, one starred future Mulholland Dr. co-star Laura Harring, and the other starred Melora Hardin of The Office fame.)

the phrase "lambada, the forbidden dance," is indivisible in my memory. which is the wellspring and which is the pretender?

*ahem*

These are the two cousins who fell out, right? So the two competing films were at least intentional, w/ them trying to outdo each other.

Their company split and they both wanted to continue work on the idea for a Lambada film, so they raced each other to the cinemas. (Sorry for not providing loads of detail but the story is slightly fuzzy in my mind.)

Gene Siskel was a fan of Lambada.

also Da Grande (1987). Seems like we couldn't get enough body swap movies in the 80s

No mystery, this pair:

Nineteen eighty-four (1984)
Brazil (1985)

all those stevejobs movies

Body swap films could prob be its own thread. Remember seeing one called switch (man becomes woman) from around that time

Xp weren't there two hawking bios in relatively quick succession?

The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)
Requiem (2006)

both based on the real life case of Anneliese Michel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anneliese_Michel

Deep Impact / Armageddon is often said to be one the archetypes of this phenomenon BUT Deep Impact involved a comet; in Armageddon it was an asteroid. TOTALLY different things, you guys.

there was this one year when loads of fucking superhero films came out

Lol I was genuinely gonna make a comment along those lines cause istr an instance where that happened and it actually seemed notable

A long time ago obv

There are always two boxing movies coming out

Flamin’ Hots were created by a team of hotshot snack food professionals starting in 1989

they should make a movie about this, too, and just have sooooo much cocaine in it

o snap i guess they already did:

An internal promotional video for the Cheetos brand from the first quarter of 1991 serves as further proof that Flamin’ Hots were already out in the world.

The nearly nine-minute video, which Lukaska shared with The Times, is a Day-Glo green-and-pink time capsule, with Frito-Lay execs in fashionably baggy suits touting the latest and greatest snack aimed at kids, Cheetos Paws. At one point, two DDB Needham advertising executives perform a “New Jack City”-era rap about the coolness of Chester himself. Flamin’ Hots appear in the video for less than a second, in a rapid-fire slideshow set to MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This,” alongside two other minor brands of the day, Cheetos Curls and Cheetos Light.

Every once in a while, my career puts me in touch with people who do things like that (devise and market snack foods, novelty ice cream products, energy beverages, etc.).

I do kind of wonder what their inner lives are like, and whether they laugh or cry when they reflect on the sheer silliness of it.

A few examples:

I worked for the person who came up with the slogan "soup is good food." Research indicated that mothers had underlying anxiety about feeding children meals that had not been prepared from scratch; Campbell's play was to alleviate this using the simplest, most direct possible language. The underlying lesson, I think, was that sometimes a lack of cleverness is a type of cleverness.

Much later I worked with the people who came up with the Taki's box-with-one-chip-in-it campaign. Ordinarily, companies want to communicate value, bounty, abundance. This was an instance where a manufacturer decided to go the opposite direction and sell scarcity.

There is a nice poem by Stephen Dunn with a line about how helping National Biscuit sell biscuits is wildly comic. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=36748

this all just reminds me when they made a big-budget movie based on the battleship board game and everybody was like "a movie based on a BOARD GAME god movies really have sunk to a new low", and all i could think of was how people said the same thing when the movie based on the board game clue came out in 1985. plus it had three different endings depending on which print you saw. total gimmick film.

except of course that film is fucking AMAZING.

if you make a good film on a stupid premise it will probably take longer for it to get appreciated but it will probably eventually become a cult classic. see also for instance the wachowskis making a film on the pretty bad '60s anime "speed racer" or rian johnson inexplicably deciding to make a movie in the trashy "star wars" series of films

I worked for the person who came up with the slogan "soup is good food." Research indicated that mothers had underlying anxiety about feeding children meals that had not been prepared from scratch; Campbell's play was to alleviate this using the simplest, most direct possible language. The underlying lesson, I think, was that sometimes a lack of cleverness is a type of cleverness.

― sane clown posse (Ye Mad Puffin)

a classic counterexample, someone who came up with ideas too clever for their own good, is stan freberg. he came up with this extremely elaborate busby berkeley extravaganza to promote a line of soups called the "great american soup" intended to compete with campbell's... people saw the ad and thought it was for campbell's soup. also see his ad campaign for the airline company that had just had some high-profile crashes... sophistication and irony are maybe not the best qualities for an ad campaign... it was nice to see daniel clowes getting work mind you.

Good post Kate.

Now I feel like maybe we have enough material to make a musical about canned food, which will be called...

Wait for it...

SOUP OPERA.

that made me think Ouija Boards were originally a board "game" made by Parker Brothers and imdb lists

1. Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016)
2. Ouija (II) (2014)
3. Ouija House (2018)
4. Ouija Seance: The Final Game (2018 TV Movie)

so we are back on topic 8)

the second Ouija was actually really fucking good.

Elvis (2022) & Priscilla (2023)

Oh no, but he’s not a hero

Indies about three dopey dudes who thieves and pull off a big heist after some enept smaller robberies: Bottle Rocket and Palookaville, both 1996

"who become thieves and try to pull off a major heist" & "inept smaller robberies "

The two O.J. projects (F/X series + 8-hour ESPN documentary). O.J.: Made in America screened at Sundance on Jan. 22, 2016; The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story debuted on Feb. 2, 2016, 11 days later.

https://www.ilxor.com/ILX/NewAnswersControllerServlet?boardid=41

lol

Hah

I thought this was going to be about

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BODBhZTFiOGItNjk4ZS00Y2VkLWJkNGQtNTk5NzZlNThlM2I4XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMzQwMTY2Nzk@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTM2NTU1ZTktNjc4YS00NjNhLWE4NmYtOTM2YjFjOGUzNmYzXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyODE5NzE3OTE@._V1_.jpg

From 2011:

“La Guerre des Boutons” (“The War of the Buttons”) is a comedic remake of a 1962 blockbuster about spirited boys fighting with catapults and wooden swords. It was released Wednesday in French theaters.

But in an unprecedented development here, a more melodramatic film of the same story, with the similar title “La Nouvelle Guerre des Boutons” (“The New War of the Buttons”), comes out just a week later.

Both scripts are based on the same book, “La Guerre des Boutons,” written in 1912 by Louis Pergaud. Both have the same co-producer, the privately owned television channel TF1, and the same budget, about 13 million euros, or nearly $18 million.

https://www.critique-film.fr/la-guerres-des-boutons-2-films-differents/

https://archive.is/IIjHG

I suppose this sort of thing is going to keep happening as books fall out of copyright

a 1912 book by someone who died in 1915 would've been public domain for a while though

for some reason it didn’t enter the public domain until 2010, not sure why

Once upon a time there were two Jean Harlow biopics released five weeks apart:

Harlow (1965)
Harlow (1965)

came on here to post this but emil.y beat me to it 8 years ago lol

emil.y at 3:42 26 Mar 16
The Double (2013, adapted from Dostoevsky's The Double)
Enemy (2013, adapted from Saramago's The Double)
Both deal with doppelgängers and identity.

RIP Christopher Priest, without whom there would have only been one magician movie.

RIP. He wrote a lot of great stuff.

I have yet to watch the movie or read the book, been saving it up.

Still need to finish Nina Allan’s The Rift as well, which starts out grebt.

Immaculate
The First Omen

Haha I just said the same thing to my friend.

Bizarre how similar they are

Not just in "nun" premise but the first half hour of movie too