one time there were two magician movies

That one time there were two Chicago-based hospital dramas on tv:
ER
Chicago Hope

Last we had a feature film from Clint Eastwood about Richard Jewell, and now CBS has picked up a cable mini-series about him which they premiered tonight.

Last Year...

There is something rich and strange and generous in Matteo Garrone’s new live-action version of the Pinocchio story ... his father-creator Geppetto is played by the exuberant Roberto Benigni, who himself directed a Pinocchio film in 2002 ... Next year, Guillermo del Toro is due to bring out his own version of Pinocchio and it is inevitably rumoured to be “darker”, while Robert Zemeckis has his own adaptation in mind with Tom Hanks as Geppetto

not the same year (or decade for the benigni version) but wtf

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/aug/14/pinocchio-review-matteo-garrone-live-action

there are always like three Pinocchio projects on the Hollywood back burner, oddly

https://i.ibb.co/KmcZrcV/MV5-BNGY4-MGJl-Zjgt-Nj-Rh-NC00-MDlm-LThi-MDct-Zj-Mx-Ym-I1-ZGU1-Zj-Fj-Xk-Ey-Xk-Fqc-Gde-QXVy-MTQx-Nz-M.jpg

If I was doing a Pinocchio film and then I heard Del Toro was doing one as well I probably wouldn't bother with mine.

Movies about the porn industry in the '70s:

The People Vs. Larry Flynt (1996)
Boogie Nights (1997)

Atlantic Records, much to the disappointment of Myles for whom the song had been written, gave the song to country artist Robin Lee to record. In the United States, Myles' version was released in December 1989, while Lee's version was released two months later in February 1990. This led to Myles being promoted by Atlantic on the pop and rock radio stations, and Lee on the country radio stations. Lee even filmed a videoclip of the song very similar to Myles' video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m47mRr9OP8

speaking of doppelganger videos, i've just now clocked that 'Love Is a Battlefield' and 'Beat It' came out within months of each other and were both directed and choreographed by the same people!

Not exactly this phenom but it’s wild to think we have TWO sparks films out this year: the Wright doc & Carax’s Annette

And both look good!

Depths of my E Wright dislike run pretty deep but the Sparks movie looks good yes

I’m not a huge fan but looks like he was a good choice for this

It’s funny they’ve had ambitions to get into film forever, they were meant to make a film w Tati but then he died, there was the ingmar bergman musical they were trying to get made for years & years (also got Tsui Hark to recite his filmography on a track lol) & suddenly this in the year of our lord 2021

The Sparks doco uses their film interests as a throughline, also covering the six years they lost on the Mai The Psychic Girl adaptation, but is so short that only one of the attached directors gets mentioned.

Oh cool! Hopefully covers fright night valley girl and ROLLERCOASTER then

The seduction of ingmar bergman always felt like it had so not gonna happen written all over it tbh but bless them for trying

ONE of those is included

Two Aretha Franklin bio pics this year: The "Genius: Aretha" miniseries on National Geographic with Cynthia Erivo; and Respect, the theatrical one with Jennifer Hudson.

last night i found it confusing that there is a film call Licorice Pizza and a film called Gunpowder Milkshake

Both sound like they taste the same

I had never heard the phrase Gunpowder Milkshake before the film though

The Diana & Charles season of The Crown, and upcoming theatrical film Spencer w/Kristen Stewart as Diana.

...and there's also a Netflix film of the impending Diana Broadway musical due October 1st.

what a time to be alive

the entire musical occurs during the car crash

I remember really clearly this happening a lot on TV. The one that springs to mind most readily (aside from Chicago Hope / ER, already mentioned) was Steven Bochco launching two separate and nearly-identical legal series' in 1995 (Murder One on NBC, Murder In The First on TNT)

(Sorry, Murder One was on ABC)

When this phenomenon was first identified, I think I was told that it was a way of competing studios trying of fuck with each other, but it seems more likely to me now that there's a natural spill-over in passive cross-promotion

The time is ripe for at least two more simultaneous Steve Prefontaine movies.

wish they'd get to Postfontaine already

wish he’d Post Ma-LESS!

kids in the hall: brain candy (1996)
austin powers: international man of mystery (1997)

one time there were two movies with colons in the titles in which the canadian sketch actors (who had worked under lorne michaels) portraying the antagonists were just doing their lorne michaels impressions. mckinney over myers for style points but myers just really went there, didn't he?

i need to rewatch the ice storm to see if it was the other teen girl on a swing thing. i thought i checked it out after tuomas' imput and it wasn't it but now i don't remember. tv tropes has a category labelled trauma swing, and its inverse, swing low, sweet harriet, but those aren't the same thing. the first is bad things happening and the latter is joyous remembrance but the tammy metzler from election i'm thinking of is lachrymose and introspective, yet forward-looking. transitional, people, i'm not a girl, not yet a woman (britney reference). i only bring this up because i feel i introduced the concept of minor detail that links two otherwise unconnected movies as a sub-category to the original thread concept of nearly identical movies and if i can't support my assertion in that instance thn that appelation is invalid and i prefer teen girl on a swing over elle woods/ bridget jones goes to party in a playboy bunny outfit because she mistakenly assumed the shindig was a costume party.

there was a time when i had hollywood video and blockbuster video memberships and i was just renting everything that looked necessary and relevant and burning all of it and then watching random movies in succession after i'd compiled so many because you kinda have to or why are you doing this and that sort of jungian synchronicity where there was a really specific intersection popped up often enough but probably of course it would. it's still fun when it happens.

Girls5eva and Queens: TV shows about fictional 90s Girl Groups getting back together.

in the span of 18 months the man was in two entirely different movies about the zodiac killer, one a masterpiece and the other a piece of junk, because that's just what our great character actors did goddamn it https://t.co/CThWB4CSI6

— Jess Harvell (@cheaptrickrules) June 13, 2022

Vietnam-era movies about stateside Navy lifers dealing with the vagaries and unfairness of "The System": Cinderella Liberty and The Last Detail (1973):

There was a wave (get it?) of penguin movies in the mid 00s

March of the Penguins - 2005
Madagascar - 2005
Happy Feet - 2006
Surf's Up - 2007

Do songs count?

Space feat. Cerys Matthews - The Ballad of Tom Jones (1998)

Fun Lovin' Criminals - Love Unlimited (1998)

Ode to the life-and-marriage-saving properties of a disco era crooner in novelty single form

Also, The Munsters and The Addams Family to thread.

(both 1964)

Two movies about the Bling Ring thieves: a Lifetime TV movie (2011), and a theatrical film directed by Sophia Coppola (2013), both entitled The Bling Ring.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_films

Producer Bingham Ray recalls a conversation where the screenwriter of the 2006 Truman Capote biopic Infamous phoned to announce that his script had been finished. Ray said "I know, I've got it on my desk!" before realizing that he actually had the screenplay to Capote, a biopic by a different writer.[5]

forgot abt this one

Christine 2016 Kate Plays Christine

Kerouac adaptations: On The Road (2012) and Big Sur (2013)

...and then there was also Howl (2010), which is part adaptation of the Ginsberg work and part dramatization of the obscenity trial, with all the Beat legends present and accounted for.

Justin Bieber: Never Say Never (2011)
The Thing (2011)

To Sir with Love (released June 14, 1967)
Up the Down Staircase (released June 28, 1967)

Citizens Band (1977)
Convoy (1978)

Empress Elisabeth of Austria:

The Empress (TV series) (2022)
Corsage (Film) (2022)