"There's nothing new except that which has been forgotten," proclaimed Rose Bertin, Marie Antoinette's milliner. Looks like Hollywood is taking her words to heart, as Patrick Goldstein reports today in his audit of the reboots and remakes clogging the movie pipeline. They include Bob Zemeckis' Yellow Submarine, Steven Spielberg's Harvey and Bryan Singer's Excalibur.
Many classic films -- including John Huston's The Maltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart and Martin Scorsese's The Departed -- are remakes, the Huston the THIRD version of the Dashiell Hammett story cranked out by Warners in under a decade and the Scorsese a reboot of the Hong Kong actioner Infernal Affairs. His Girl Friday, one of the greatest comedies ever, was Howard Hawks' gender-reversed remake of The Front Page.
Great as some sequels are, I'm not looking forward to the upcoming remakes Fame and Footloose and The Karate Kid. And yet I totally get why audiences want to see classic stories with contemporary actors, for example J.J. Abrams' Star Trek. In this vein, there are very good remakes of The Parent Trap (Hayley Mills and Hayley Mills in the original, Lindsay Lohan and Lindsay Lohan in the remake) and Freaky Friday (Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris in the original, Jamie Lee Curtis and Lohan in the remake). And, goodness knows, Little Women was great with Katharine Hepburn as Jo in 1933 and with Winona Ryder as Jo in 1994.
A lot of the announced remakes are of TV shows. For every small-screen success remade as a big-screen bomb (think Bewitched or Starsky & Hutch) there are surprisingly good updates such as The Brady Bunch and Get Smart.
My vote for the Worst. Remake. Ever. would probably be Warren Beatty's Love Affair (a remake of Leo McCarey's 1939 Love Affair and his 1958 An Affair to Remember) which likewise inspired Nora Ephron's enjoyable rethink Sleepless in Seattle.
Favorite/least favorite remakes? Your thoughts on the eternal remake trend?
I love Here Comes Mr. Jordan. I don't care for Heaven Can Wait. I think a 10-year moratorium on remakes would be a nice exercise of movie industry self-restraint.— ccjroberts- One more thing. Can this Yellow Submarine thing be stopped? The one awful Beatles movie. Painful.— ccjroberts
- Sorcerer is an excellent remake of Wages of Fear, which is also outstanding. No third take is called for.— Bob Ross
- I'll offer thoughts on the trend. Why do Americans remake foreign films? I'm dreading BROTHERS, a fine Danish film forthcoming with Tobey McGuire and Jake Gyllenhall. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is being needlessly Americanized and remade as I understand. On another note, while I understand souping-up a horror franchise for a new audience (e.g., TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, HALLOWEEN, etc.) I don't know that this is necessary either. Is it simply that Hollywood that devoid of ideas that everything old is new again? I am sure money is driving all this, but that doesn't mean moviegoers have to support it. Been there, done that.— garyk
- Bob Zemeckis re-making "Yellow Submarine" is a bizarre combo - a devout misanthrope meets one of the more famous groups of humanists to re-tell a story that couldn't be more out of tune with current times. (Hey, I wonder if this means someone is going to re-make "Head"? I nominate Sylvester Stallone for the Victor Mature role.) As far as past re-makes, I have to say I'm not a big fan of Douglas Sirk's re-makes of John Stahl's movies (I know I'm in the minority on that one).— wwolfe
- Carrie - If I may play devil's advocate here, Broadway revives plays and musicals all the time and no one flinches. How many different readings of "A Streetcar Named Desire" have there been over the years? The revivals have given such actresses as Jessica Lange, Patricia Clarkson, Francis McDormand and the late Natasha Richardson (to name but a few) a chance to tear into a really terrific role. But if anyone in Hollywood even whispered any intentions of doing a remake of the old film, the die-hard movie freaks would scream, "Blasphemy!" (Yes, there were TV remakes with Treat Williams and Ann-Margaret, and Alex Baldwin and Lange, but TV doesn't count, right?) ) Why the difference in reaction? Why are theater people so open to redefining old hits, while movie people like their classics lacquered and made untouchable? It's terribly rigid. Of course, Hollywood has a reputation not so much only for doing remakes but doing inferior remakes. Demme's "The Manchurian Candidate" is arguably the best example of a missed opportunity to give the great material a new, modern slant. As for Carrie's question, I personally love all four versions of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (yes, even Abel Ferrara's take on the material and the most recent one with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig). I'm looking forward to a mini-marathon of that quartet one day. BTW, the most delicious-sounding remake is the one proposed by Tilda Swinton the other day at the Venice Film Festival - "Auntie Mame," starring ... Swinton! Can't wait. (My only fear is that Streep will get her hands on it.) -J— Pash
- I loved Tim Burton's updated Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, mostly because it always bothered me that they replaced the great squirrel scene described in the book with the golden geese in the one with Gene Wilder. Also, the new Batman franchise makes pretty much all Batman movies before them barely even watchable for me anymore. I think that while it sometimes seems unoriginal to do a remake or tv show-based film, its interesting to see a new take on something that I already enjoy and often it just makes it even better. It's kind of like a band doing a cover song, and without them we would only have Dylan's version of All Along the Watchtower.— allison811
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