Raping the 80's

I am a child of the 80's. As a decade I look back and cringe until I remember the music and sometimes the movies. To use a word that as a gay man and 'Sex and the City' fan, I use too much I would have to say that decade was fabulous.
However it seems that Hollywood is counting on the fact that most cinema attendees are either 90's children or love nostalgia far too much.
If it is the latter then I am sure they will be completely disappointed.

Not only are the mining 80's TV (cartoons and prime time) they are also going back and stealing all the movies. It is as if original thought has died.

We have coming out this year:

'The A Team', 'Nightmare on Elm Street', 'The Karate Kid', 'Clash of the Titans', 'Tron 2'

And that does not include the films that are being planned for remake duties:'

Police Academy', 'Short Circuit', 'Private Benjamin', 'Poltergeist', 'Escape from New York', ''Footloose', 'Red Dawn', 'Robocop', 'Fright Night', 'The Thing', 'He Man' and many many more.

What about those films that could really benefit from a remake? Most of these are just being rehashed for quick bucks. I would like to see a remake of a film that didn't quite succeed the first time around - or could really use a visual effects update (there are rumours of a planned remake of 'The Never Ending Story' which does kind of excite me - that is a movie that although captured the imagination as a child could really benefit from a grittier remake - ie make it for an audience of adults not for children)
Or perhaps what I have already discussed back here - now that is a movie that was creepy and effective if also very flawed (mainly in the screenplay).

What is sad, at least for me, about remaking these films is that there is no real point to it - aside from moola.
People will always go to the movies, but making a film with an pre set audience just seems lazy. What is even more worrying is that most of these are remakes of the original. In another 20 years are we going to have remakes of the remake of the remake of the original?
Are our lives nothing but rehashing the ideas of others with no care for making it at least sound original?
With all these remakes, re-hashes and plagiary, I couldn't help but wonder... where have all the stories gone?

Remaking movies

A family is shipwrecked off an uninhabited isle. A Father and his two eldest sons salvage as much as they can from the wreck including livestock, tools, and even an organ. The three men construct a tree-house home on the island while the youngest boy investigates the wildlife and Mother prays to be rescued. The Two eldest sons discover a young pirate captive on the island. They rush her to the tree-house. Father realizes the pirates will try to reclaim her and decides to make a stand against them.

Or so goes the premise to the movie ‘Swiss Family Robinson’ one of those films I adored as a child. Probably now I would get really pissed off with the overly sexist nature of the story (Mother prays?…PLEASE we all know it would have been the woman buliding the tree house, cooking the food and basically whipping the men into shape) and the fact that the building of the tree house would have not been very environmentally friendly may have upset me (lets face it, it would have been no Lothlorian).

However I would love to see this film remade today, but vastly different.

Due to current technology we would have to go back and set it in the 70’s when there were still undiscovered islands and no GPS to take into consideration otherwise it would be a case of - open credits - “Oh dear we are shipwrecked…let me use my cell phone….here comes the chopper! YAY!!” – end credits.

Instead of just having one family, perhaps have a group of three wealthy families who go on a yachting trip together on one of those giant numbers complete with maids, chefs, captains, deck hands and the such - we need a little class divide to keep things interesting.

An unexpected storm causes the anchor to snap and the boat to drift very far and basically get battered against the reefs of an island. Of course not everyone survives. Families are broken, parents lose children, children lose parents and it is all very tragic.
Yes I would like to see this as a drama and not a family action adventure as both movies and the source material were. These are things that would not work so well these days, and for selfish reasons I need the plausibility....if you are shipwreacked in the storm, people will die, kind of a no-brainer.

I still want to keep the fabulous tree house, but loose the pirates and captive women and geographically implausible animals. I would like the film to be about how a family can be made from the fragments left behind of other families.

All too often we see these shipwreck movies that involve pirates, giant animals, racist depictions of natives or ‘others’ to amp up the story when just surviving the ordeal is drama enough to more than sustain interest.

I am thinking about making this a regular feature, where I take movies to be remade. I think that movies that should be remade are ones that had a good story/idea, but were not successful in their execution. Technically this idea is not a remake, or like a re-visualization of a classic book/movie, but you get the idea.
I already flirted with this idea here, here and sadly very predictably here, but it kind of didn’t take at the time. Do you think I should continue with this, or should I at some point do a remake blog-a-thon?

Oh No...what happened to...MY SOUFFLE!!!??!!

This questions and other like "Why does Jessica Alba still work?" will hopefully be answered this week with the release of "The Eye"

I love my Box. Lets remake MADONNA!

This week I am going to look at four of the better Madonna covers.

For such a huge star, Madonna actually has very little songs of hers covered, which seems a shame. I guess it is because the originals are always near perfect so why mess.
The are trillions of cheap dance remakes out there, but what about real artists going and remaking her music. Not a lot I am afraid.
Here are two that I actually do not hate, and even like very very much:

1 .I totally love Groove Armada.

They created on of the best dance songs of 2007, and now they have decided to take on Madonna’s high school dance classic “Crazy for You”.
In doing so they have created a soulful, funky and extremely different re-imagining of the song that knocked “We Are The World” from the number one spot back in 1984.


2 .Not really a Natasha Bedingfield fan, but have to say was very impressed with her cover of “Ray of Light”. She made it different enough to separate it from the Queens original masterpiece.
Natasha even said that she never thought Madonna was a strong vocalist until she tried to sing this song in the studio and realized how difficult it was.

Good for her.

On the other hand Madonna herself does very few covers. When she does she is usually deeply criticized when she does, but usually they have been pretty darn good. My favourite two of her career have been.

3 . “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” – People either love it or hate it. The people who hate it go on about how Madonnas voice is too raw for the song and not powerful enough to get across the emotion.
I say pah! Her voice is raw, true, but this is a girl-done-wrong song. She is passionate, angry and hurt and it all come out in her vocal performance.

4 . “I Want You” released as a single and it did not do well at all. I can understand why. This was before “Ray of Light” and Madonna teamed up with the hottest trip-hop/electronica group around Massive Attack.
The result is sexy, sultry musical magic about the frustration of yearning for that unrequited love. You can almost imagine her fudding herself off while singing this. HOT!!

Ugh...not another one.

Is there a horror film from the 70’s or 80’s that has yet to be made? Everything is getting the remake treatment(so far “Nightmare on Elm Street” is safe).
Is this a way to still make movies during the writers and actor strike looming? To remake horror films that will not need much work in the script department? Are Hollywood honcho’s running out and buying up copies of Screenplays for Dummies as we speak?

I just been announced that creepy killer doll movie “Child’s Play” is set to get the redo treatment.

Now as a premise this was scary sh*t. Dolls always scared the crapola out of me as a kid. I was terrified everytime the Teddy Rucksbin commercial came on telly. He was just plain evil.

The whole crazed killer gets trapped in the body of a toy is just plain silly. Why does it have to be explained? Could it just not be a doll that comes to life and terrorizes? To me that is much scarier, to leave some mysteries in life.

Bye Bye Birdie

All over the blog-o-sphere there is the debate on whether they should remake the classic (and my favourite) Hitchcock movie “The Birds”.
There is no really clear answer. I for one would love to see the film, as it is not, but cleaned up with more realistic effects. I do not mean evil beaked creatures from hell flying around, but a version that makes the attacks that more real.

This film is going ahead whether we cry and stamp our feet about it or not. If it is going to be tweaked for a modern audience then get a really good and respectful team behind you.

Daphne Du Maurier wrote the original story about birds terrorizing a town for no obvious reason. The story was very well written. There was no explanation for the attacks, it just was.

Naomi Watts has already been cast in the Tippi Hendren role, and this is a fine choice, in fact a little hope springs within me.
Martin Campbell is set to direct (he breathed new life into Bond) which could be a good thing. Or if like me you look at his filmography and see nothing but action films, your heart sinks. “The Birds” is not an action film.

However the script in not finished, they have hired Paul Harris Boardman and Scott Derrickson(“The Exorcism of Emily Rose” and, um, erm “Urban Ledgends: Final Cut”) to scribe the film.

Hear that?

That is the sound of my heart breaking.

This film is not a priority for Universal and may have to wait until the impending writers/actors strike is finished. Hopefully someone will save the day. However, if it is crap(all probability points that way), it will just once again serve as a spotlight to the genius of Hitchcock.

Save the world Keanu

In the late 80’s and early 90’s everyone was in love with the Hawaiian. I never was. In films he was always one of two things, dumb, or wooden. Pretty to look at sure, but that is really it.

It seems he may have found a role that will suit his…(snigger)….talents.

The man who walked in a shat all over “Bram Stokers Dracula” will play Klaatu, a humanoid alien who arrives on Earth with a warning to world leaders that their continued aggression will lead to annihilation by species watching from afar in the remake of “The Day the Earth Stood Still”.

Yeah yeah…another remake of a classic film. It does seem as though there originality bucket is down to it’s last scrapings. Scott Derrickson is directing and David Scarpa is writing. Both not really proven, but could be a chance for them to do a scathing study on politics and corruption under the protective guise of sci-fi.
Then again no one at the beginning of their career is really going to take a risk like that.

Midnight Madness

” An American gold-digger finds herself penniless in Paris. But when impersonating a baroness, she finds several ways to make money. If only she can avoid stepping into the same trap she always does- falling in love with a poor man”

And so goes the premise for the 1939 comedy staring Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche and John Barrymore. Why do I mention this?
Well only because Reese Witherspoon will star in Universal Pictures' remake of it, which is being directed by 'Little Miss Sunshine' Oscar winning screenwriter Michael Arndt .

So what do you follow up you Original Screenplay Oscar with? A Remake.

Don’t get me wrong, I think adapting a novel or play to the screen take a tremendous amount of work to pull successfully, as does an original screenplay, but remakes?

Most of the ground work is done and the whole plot is layed out for you so it should be smooth sailing. Granted there are remakes that have worked amazingly well. ‘Freaky Friday’ was one of them and King Kong was another but I am stumped to come up with more (hung over so please help me out in the comments). With all these wonderful books to adapt and ideas to write about, can we not leave some of the classic films alone and concentrate on telling the stories that have not all ready been put on celluloid?

Remake THIS THREE!!

My good friend Heidi and I used to scare our selves to death with this movie. It was at a time when Disney was producing some very frightening films aimed for older kids. Many people prefer "Something Wicked This Way Comes", but for me the film that captured the chills and frights of the unseen (years before "The Blair Witch Project") was Disneys 1980's "The Watcher in the Woods". It also led to Heidi and I playing some overly imaginative and, frankly, quite frightening games.
When a normal American family moves into a beautiful old English house in a wooded area, strange, paranormal appearances befall them. Their daughter Jan sees things, and daughter Ellie hears, the voice of a young teenage girl who mysteriously disappeared during a total solar eclipse decades before. When she vanished something replaced her in the woods and now watches them.

Ohhh I have chills thinking about it. Bette Davis plays the aged Mrs. Alywood in one of her last roles. My sister recently bought me the DVD of this, and at the tender age of 23 (give or take eight years) this still made me jump and had me pulling the covers to my chin. Though tame by today's bloody standards and a flop on its original release, this handsome little gothic ghost story has become something of a cult film for its suggestive direction, impressionistic imagery, and spooky sense of the unknown.

It got me really thinking about how well it could work today.
Alejandro Amenábar proved in 2001 that he has an amazing sense of suspense and is able to handle and maintain a slow uncomfortable build, and we would be my first choice in the director’s chair.
Of course the original ending worked better than any of the deleted
ones tagged onto the DVD (aliens......really) and I will always be one who stands by the fact that leaving some plot lines unanswered adds to the mystery and thrills.
Apparently Brian Clemens wrote a version of the screenplay he was most interested in directing, but Disney decided that this version was much too dark, and hired Rosemary Anne Sisson to lighten it up. I would be curious to see Clemens version, mainly to see how dark he intended it to be.

I am sure it is lying around somewhere, so someone get it out and
re-adapt it but without the cheep thrills, gore, torture and rape that seem to be the rage with all current horror films.
The ‘Saws’ and the ‘Hostels’ of the world are such poor examples of genuine horror. If I want to watch someone get hacked up with loads of blood and gore I will watch a surgery channel. If I want to watch a teenage girl get brutally raped (‘The Hills Have Eyes’) just to be thrilled I will check myself into a mental hospital and get lots of therapy (being raped is horrific enough without it being used to up the scares and shock in a horror film – some film makers are irresponsible).
Bring back the thrills and shivers of ‘The Changeling’, ‘The Blair Witch Project’, ‘The Others’ and even the Japanese horror films of ‘Ringu’ and ‘Ju-on’ that used atmosphere and story telling to scare you. STOP THE VIOLENCE!!!

Who seduces an angel? Who strips in space?

In more remake news, Robert Rodriguez will direct Universal's adaptation of the sci-fi comic “Barbarella”. The character was made famous by the 1968 movie adaptaion , which starred Jane Fonda and was produced by Dino De Laurentiis (he who thought Jodie Foster was not sexy enough to play Clarice Starling in “Silence of the Lambs”), who is also producing the new film with Martha De Laurentiis. Those two have not done great work, successful, but not great in terms of critical praise. Rodriguez has had much more critical success, but that is still divided. He, however, does have the visual flare to make some pretty sweet eye candy, and the source material is full of it
I went on IMDB to have a looksie at the plot (I have never seen it…hang my head low) and was met with this which made me howl with laughter.

” After an in-flight anti-gravity striptease (masked by the film's opening titles), Barbarella (Jane Fonda), a 41st century astronaut, lands on the planet Lythion and sets out to find the evil Durand Durand in the city of Sogo, where a new sin is invented every hour. There, she encounters such objects as the Exessive Machine, a genuine sex organ on which an accomplished artist of the keyboard, in this case, Durand Durand himself, can drive a victim to death by pleasure, a lesbian queen who, in her dream chamber, can make her fantasies take form, and a group of ladies smoking a giant hookah which, via a poor victim struggling in its glass globe, dispenses Essance of Man.”

The futuristic mercenary character Barbarella (which actually debuted in 1962 and was written and illustrated by Jean-Claude Forest) roams the universe of a distant future, undertaking missions that require fearlessness, ingenuity, sensuality, and often lead to sex. The original tag line read

” Who seduces an angel? Who strips in space? Who conveys love by hand? Who gives up the pill? Who takes sex to outer space? Who's the girl of the 21st century? Who nearly dies of pleasure?”

Well this is sounding better and better all the time.

Neal Purvis and Robert Wade are developing an original adventure for the new movie. Purvis and Wade co-wrote Casino Royale and recently finished the next Bond movie, which has a working title of Bond 22 so expect something a little more high brow than the original camp classic sex romp . Rodriguez, who is currently in theaters for Planet Terror, one-half of the Grindhouse double feature he co-directed with Quentin Tarantino, was expected to next take on an adaptation of The Jetsons or Land of the Lost, but his attention will now be turned toward helping Universal get Barbarella fast-tracked into theaters by 2008.
I guess this means we can look forward to “The Jetsons” and “Land of the Lost” coming soon to a theater near you…..great.

Who would be cast as the space age trollop? Anna Faris comes to mind. She is getting great reviews for her comedy work in “Smiley Face” even if they say the movie is slight. Rachel McAdams has proven Comedy chops as well.

I would like to see our favourite drunken slutty celebrity come back with a tongue in cheek action/sex/sci fi romp and really go for it. Give it to Lindsay!! Let he prove her comedy worth again! This time, with the lack of wardrobe, she should be at home. She looks the part, she has pretty much lived the part, the only thing she will need to get used to is the sci fi setting. All jokes aside, we all know that there is a great actress inside this girl, she just needs to get over her rebellion, and make us proud.

Barbarella (1968)
Uploaded by scootaway

Remake THIS TWO!!

Back in 1984 “Wolfgang Petersen” bought us to the fantasy world of Fantasia (crap name really) and the characters of Bastian, Atreyu, Night Hob and The Childlike Empress in the classic but aged “The Neverending Story”.
There were some dark and upsetting moments in this otherwise slightly slushy film. Artex succumbing to sorrow in the swamp of sadness (welling up thinking about it) and Atreyu with the Sphinx were moments I would not want to willingly watch as a child for fear of getting upset around others (have a thing about public displays of emotion).

However much I loved this movie, it has not aged as well as I had imagined. This is why I would like to see it remade today, but not as a child’s film, but as a film for adults.
Take away all the slush and the cutesy characters and ground them in the seriousness of their plight. Give us complex heroes and base all the creatures in a organic reality. Sure the central characters can be children, but make them believable in their roles. Make Bastian a teenager, but not a looser. Maybe make Atreyu a girl, a savage warrior on the cusp of woman hood. Please do not make the luck dragon a flying dog with scales (keep it dragon like and voiceless). And above all make it scary!! Do what Guillermo del Torro did in “ Pan’s Labyrinth ” and create a child’s vision of fantasy aimed at an adult.

I would seriously recommend a director of such visual flare as Jean-Pierre Jeunet to tackle this. I would trust him to do wonders with the material, and more importantly, loose the theme song.

Remake THIS!!

I always wonder what warrants a film being remade? It is desperation of the film studios to make an easy buck? Is it a total lack of original screenplays to choose from? Are there no novels out there to adapt anymore? I have no idea what the answer is although I guess a lot of it has to do with pure laziness. With remakes, half the work is done for you, it is just finding a new way to make it fresh and this is where things begin to fall apart.
I was thinking about what films I would like to see remade, and actually deserve a fresh spin. I figured I would do a little multi part look at the movies I want to see remade based solely on the fact I feel there is room for them in the world now.

My first one is one that I just watched last night. I have a sneaky suspicion that this is being remade, and if so good luck.
“Twelve Angry Men” was a classic film of it’s time. Twelve men of a jury deciding whether or not to send a young boy to the electric chair. Intense film, and what was interesting is how every man defends his stance and why they change their verdict. However they were twelve angry WHITE MEN.

If it were to be remade today it would have to find a crime/defendant that would cause both sexual and racial tension. The Jury would be a diverse age range, sex/sexuality and of course racially diverse to heat up the tension. People will say that it is an exercise in stereotypes to have such a mix, but that is not what this is about. It is about people’s reasoning for guilt and innocence and yes, sometimes their background can interfere. This would be more of an analysis of inner prejudices and a chance to tackle serious subjects in an intelligent and thought provoking way. A chance to turn character stereotypes on their head for a change without resorting to uninspired predictable tricks (ohh the woman is on the side of the rapist……the gay man isn’t mincing).

Of course plot lines and such are the job of a good screenwriter, but the idea is good I think. Of course it will be a completely different film, just taking the general concept of the original, so not technically a remake.

And even more!

Nicole Kidman is a busy busy woman. She has two high profile films coming out this year. “ The Invasion ” a remake of “ Invasion of the Body Snatchers ” for Warner Bros. Pictures, “ Margot at the Wedding ” for Paramount and New *cough* Line’s “ The Golden Compass ” in which she plays the films central villian, which is a nice change of pace for our Nicole.
There is a possibility she could be nominated for one or two of these films, depending on how competative the year turns out to be for actresses, and how well the films in general are received.

After a few disappointments, both commercially and critically, it would be nice to see Nicole back on track. She has amazing acting ability, but she does seem to come off as quiet and cold on screen. Even in her warmest moments in “Moulin Rouge” you could still sense the chill in the air. I guess being contractually married to a gay leprechaun for all those years would freeze one up a little. Here is hoping some good ole Australian meat will melt her.
With “Margot at the Wedding” we should see a warmer Nicole emerge playing a mother who takes her son visit her sister over the weekend, in a story about coming to terms with one's family in distress, and oneself. Written by the very talented Noah Baumbach, who knows how to write fully drawn and realised characters.
She also had “Need” coming up where she plays a suicidal patient having an affair with her therapists (Naomi Watts!!) husband. And finally, what everyone is waiting for and chomping at the bit to see, the wonderful and visualistic Baz Luhrmann come back with “Austrailia” with Hugh Jackman (yummmm). Baz directing Hugh and Nicole in an Australian epic….I am there!!

The main reason for this post is because Nicole Kidman is going to the altar with 20th Century Fox for a remake of " How to Marry a Millionaire ".
Sacha Gervasi , who wrote Steven Spielberg's "The Terminal," has been tapped to pen the screenplay, which will be a contemporary-set reinterpretation of the Marilyn Monroe classic.
Yet another remake.
See what I mean….fresh out of ideas is ole Hollywood.

Marilyn Monroe Diamonds are a G
Uploaded by manon42

And More Remakes

But this one sounds more promising than the one outlined in my previous post, and qite frankly, most of the remakes out there (Ron Howard doing ”Hidden” - you have got to be joking!!
I have yet to see ”Brothers” but have heard wonderful things about it, and have been meaning to see it for a while now. It was one of those movies that has always been on the back of my mind to rent, but I keep forgetting to.
So before I continue let me go and add it to my Love Film list and through the magic of the internet it will be delivered to my door.
Done.

Now the original starred the ever lovely Connie Nielsen and was directed my the wonderful Susanne Bier (who we will see direct Halle Berry in “Things We Lost In The Fire”) was not seen by many outside of the film loving world……I have been publicly shamed.
The story involves two brothers -- one an officer in the Army, the other an ex-convict -- whose lives are irrevocably changed while one tries to cope with the scars of war while his troubled younger brother, becomes increasingly drawn to the first brother's wife.

Sony Pictures have announced that Jim Sheridan will direct a remake. I greatly admire this man, and “In America” is one of my favourite movies and those who where there know I broke my “never cry in a cinema” rule, and sobbed for hours afterwards.
I can imagine him doing good things with this, and hold out hope that he will succeed.
Sources close to the project say that Sheridan's involvement is expected to attract three A-list actors to the cast in the upcoming weeks.
Now with all these remakes happening, I need to do some research on what original screenplays are being made.
I mean, lets face it, the Original Screenplay category at the Oscars is by far the more prestigious.

Musical Appreciation Class 4

Talking about musicals and remakes, please cast Toni, please cast Toni

Life is a Cabaret

With the disturbing news that Renee Zell...(I can't even finish typing it) was being considered for the remake of Cabaret, I reached for nearest pillow and screamed myself silent.
For starters EWW! YUCK!!, secondly why remake it in the first place? I mean it stll holds up today, and Liza is still as dazzling as she was back then, so why even think about it?

But then I thought about what Nat over at the Film Experience and I could not agree more.

Toni Collette as Sally Bowels. How could it go wrong?

The the rest of the cast....well John Cameron Mitchell as the Master of Ceremonies (how delicious would he be!). Eric Bana as Brian Roberts (because he is sexy, but can to that naive thing with his eyes) and Clive Owen as Maximilian von Heune (Who would not want to see him and Eric kiss on screen!!!)
PLEASE STUDIO'S MAKE IT LIKE THIS!!!!