It never gets old

Greetings, my ten followers! That can be taken a couple different ways, of course: the never gets old part. One could say that the formula of the underdog triumphing in the ring never gets old. One could also say that a robot never gets old... but they do tend to get a little rusty. In any event, the box office market has spoken: Karate Kid trumps Primary Colors today. Perhaps any day, but today particularly. And PG-13 trumps R today as well. Which makes me want to focus in a bit on Shawn Levy, director of Real Steel, because every once in a while a director like Jay Roach comes along with that magic touch, the ability to get #1 hits on a fairly consistent basis. 2003's Just Married was a #1 hit; for one week, anyway. 2006's Pink Panther remake was a #1 hit. Night at the Museum 1 and 2 were SO #1 hits... and on and on. When's this guy going to take a break to start his own studio? Not that successful yet, I guess. A film director's job is starting to look less and less glamorous to me as the years drag on. Especially for TV, even though they're working on that quality gap between movies and TV. It may already be equal for all I know; Joe Dante seems to think so.