Coming soon to a theater near you...
The movie based on the musical based on the classic film based on the book adapted from the teleplay of the two-part, very special episode of the American TV show originating from the hit British mini-series based on actual events written about in a magazine article sparked by
an earlier review of a Kurosawa film that was never released......
In a world........
I've decided I have to get back to screenwriting. Apparently Hollywood is bereft of creativity these days. I don't want to see remakes of movies that were perfect-- ARE perfect-- already. I don't want to see movies based on bad television shows that nobody watched to begin with. Does nobody have an original idea anymore? Has literally EVERYTHING been done? Damn, I hope not.
Arthur was remade this year. This one actually looks like it might be a good movie, but trailers have misled me before. Dudley Moore was amazing as Arthur. The movie is a classic. Maybe not the best movie ever made, nor even in the top ten or twenty, but a CLASSIC. I just hope this is one of the rare occasions that the remake might stand apart, be watchable on its own merits and not just be an attempt to cash in on nostalgia, or attempt to bring something to a new audience by merely changing the setting to present day, updating the special effects, and losing the whole original social commentary or point.
Will Smith decided his son, who can't act his way out of a paper bag, needed work he wouldn't be able to get on his own, and remade The Karate Kid. Remade it, and actually called it The Karate Kid, but it's set in China and is about a youngster learning Kung-Fu and falling in love at the age of TEN. Seriously? Not only do you piss everybody off by remaking a beloved film, but you can't even do it in keeping with it's own title?
I've seen it, by the way. Not a horrible film.
If you can look past the horrible acting by the Smith kid, and forget about the title.
Oh, and turn down the volume before the Justin Bieber victory song at the end credits.
Which is actually a pretty cool song, just needed to be done by Survivor or Frank Stallone.
But I digress....
One movie I would actually like to see redone, and I know I'll get flack for it, but hear me out... The Wizard of Oz. I think this one would be a prime candidate for an update, along the same lines as The Chronicles of Narnia. Do the whole series of books, and stick to the books. The original movie is definitely a favorite of mine. It's a fucking classic amongst classics. It stands alone, on its own. A remake, with today's special effects, without all the musical numbers, could really bring the book alive in a whole new and different way... and you have a series of books to pull from. In this situation, done completely differently than the first time around, a remake can be a welcome thing. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I tend to hold in this category. The original movie, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, so named because Roald Dahl himself didn't like the direction they took with it and refused to give the rights for the proper title, stands on its own. It is a classic, I grew up with it. The Tim Burton version, to me also stands on its own. It keeps truer to the book and brings it to life in its own way. I may be completely wrong, but I also tend to believe the Oompa Loompa musical numbers are strictly an homage to the first movie. They work for me that way.
They are remaking The Wizard of Oz, if you were unaware.
From the original script.
For the most part, though, they should just leave classic films alone. I get the whole "re-imagining" thing, really I do, a new spin, a new vision, trying to improve upon the original... and that's fine. If you're doing something different with it, though, why not just do it all the way differently? Why name it the same? Why force a comparison? I Am Legend is a remake of The Omega Man, which is itself a remake. You've Got Mail is a remake of 1940's The Shop Around the Corner. Meet Joe Black is Death Takes a Holiday. Disturbia is Rear Window. You might have thought these were original films. Plus, there are all the movies that are remakes of foreign films: The Departed, The Ring, Three Men and a Baby, The Magnificent Seven, The Birdcage, The Grudge, 12 Monkeys, and many, MANY more. Pick a shakespearean work, any work, and there are any number of movies based on it. We as American moviegoers, though, don't realize these are remakes or re-workings. At least not until the end, when we realize that Hey, I've seen this before!
But to overtly remake something that is a classic in its own right, to have the audacity to say you can make a Hitchcock movie better than Hitchcock? Wow. I just don't get it. Not at all.
But the people will go see.
And money will be made.
And they'll keep on recycling the same things over and over again.
Oh, and here's some of what we have to look forward to...
The Birds
Red Dawn
Porky's
Short Circuit
Footloose
The Blob
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 (Are they remaking the whole damned series?)
Total Recall
Escape From New York
The Crow
POLTERGEIST (?!?!?)
Highlander
The Neverending Story
Rosemary's Baby
The Warriors
Death Wish
Pet Sematary
Romancing the Stone
Gilligan's Island
There are so many more.
So many.
I need to go cry now.
