There is a culture of mash-ups spreading around the Internet, whereby two disparate items are mashed together to produce a unique new item. Examples include The Grey Album, which mashes the Beatles' White Album with Jay-z's Black Album. Another example is 10 Things I Hate About Commandments, which mashes The Ten Commandments with 10 Things I Hate About You.
Another aspect of mash-ups is to re-imagine a movie in a new light. Examples include Brokeback to the Future, which tells the story of Marty and Doc as gay lovers. Other popular trailers include The Shining as a romantic comedy, and Jaws as a buddy flick.
I had a few clever ideas for movie trailer mashups, and since I have neither the time nor the talent to bring them to reality, I thought I'd share them here. If you produce one of these, do please share it with me! Feel free also to share your own ideas in the comments.
- Better Off Dead Alive, (Better Off Dead + Dead Alive) John Cusak's lovable teen idol seeks romance in Peter Jackson's gore-fest.
- The Amityville Horror Picture Show (The Amityville Horror + The Rocky Horror Picture Show) An over-the-top musical gender-bending comedy about a strange house in Amityville
- Knight of the Living Dead (First Knight + Night of the Living Dead) Zombies of the Round Table, what's not to love?
What movie mash-ups can you suggest?
One that I've been wanting to write about, though the audience who can 'get it' is terribly limited, is Main Hoon Narn, Bollywood blockbuster Main Hoon Na combined with SF cult favorite "Babylon 5". Without getting too tangled in the details, MHN is about an anti-terrorist agent who goes undercover as a college student to protect his long lost half brother, and ends up capturing the terrorists and saving the day. A summary of B5 could encompass several tomes (and probably has) but suffice it to say it would not be too difficult to imagine one of the aliens (a Narn intern, perhaps) posing as an ordinary ambassador while waiting to save the day. Or something like that.
Really, the humor's mainly in the title.
That, and Shakes (the clown) on a Plane.