Movie Remakes

So I didn't manage to get an entry posted last week -- too busy getting my new laptop setup. So here's the entry I'd originally planned to do last week. Weekend before last, I saw two things at the theater that motivated this week's post (which is something of a continuation of my previous rant about Hollywood's complete lack of creativity). Firstly I saw the new version of The Wolfman. Secondly, before the movie, I saw a trailer for the new version of The Karate Kid (and on a similar tangent, I've repeatedly scene the trailer for the remake of Clash of the Titans). Now, regardless of how good, bad, or otherwise these movies might end up being, in every case I have to ask the same question, "Did this movie REALLY need to get remade?"

Hollywood seems to be under the mistaken (in my opinion) belief that any movie more than 20 years old will have either been long forgotten, or never seen, by the movie-going public, which of course makes them all fodder for a remake. It was bad enough when they were just madly remaking foreign films, such as the wave of Asian horror movie remakes that came out after the success of The Ring (and as a fan of Asian cinema, I have to say that in 9 out of 10 cases, the original films were FAR superior to their silly Hollywood versions). But when that source was pretty much tapped dry, it was time to move on to greener pastures -- and by going into their own archives, they suddenly had hundreds and hundreds of scripts just waiting to be screwed up -- I mean, redone.

You can break down remakes of Hollywood movies into two basic categories -- remakes of classic films, and remakes of forgettable B movies. What's interesting is that each category has a very different reason for being used (and thus a different reason for asking, "Why?"). With your B movies, the obvious hope of the producers is that no one will remember the original movie, so they can pretend they've really written a new, original script (which of course is foolish, since in almost every case movie critics immediately point out in their reviews that the movie is a remake). A perfect example of this is last year's The Stepfather. While not a terrible movie, it was still at best a forgettable, nothing new or exciting suspense thriller. Which shouldn't be a surprise, since the original version of The Stepfather (released back in 1987), made very little money at the box office (although I was surprised to discover while researching this that the original actually spawned a sequel two years later). And the original at least had the presence of Terry O'Quinn (a very fine actor) as the villain (he also came back for the sequel) -- who likely made the original films worth watching. But what you have to wonder is this -- if the original movie wasn't exactly a box office hit, why on earth would you bother redoing it?

But this type of remake I can at least halfway forgive. I can see someone looking at an obscure older movie and thinking that it was ahead of its time, or that it was a good idea that just wasn't executed well, that with a tweaked, updated script and different actors/director, maybe a forgettable movie can be remade into something worth watching (and in its defense, the remake of The Stepfather made quite a bit more money than the original did, even adjusted for inflation). It certainly doesn't seem to happen with any regularity that I've seen, but I can at least get behind the effort to try and remake and old movie and hopefully make it better the second time around.

What I can't get behind, however, is the idea of trying to remake a classic film. And the reason for these remakes is obvious -- the producers are hoping to use the name recognition of the original film to help sell the new film. But I'm sorry, there's a reason that the original is a classic -- it was done really well THE FIRST TIME!! Which begs the question, how much hubris do you have to have as a filmmaker to think you can do a better job than the people who did the original film?! I don't care if the original movie is only 20 or 30 years old, or is 60 or 70 years old (which does guarantee that few moviegoers saw it when it originally came out at theaters), the same basic statement holds true -- you don't mess with a classic! Let's specifically look at the three movies I mentioned in my opening paragraph:

We'll start with The Wolfman, since that's the only one currently out. Yes, the original The Wolf Man (which interestingly enough has a three-word title, whereas the new version is only two) came out almost 70 years ago (back in 1941). That doesn't change the fact that it is one of those great Universal horror films from the classic era of Hollywood movie-making. And while Benicio Del Toro is certainly a fine actor, he's still not Lon Chaney Jr.! Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy the updated version, because it was certainly a solid film, but regardless, it was still a movie that just didn't need to get made. If you want to see a great, classic werewolf movie, see the original! That's why we have Netflix.

Next up we have The Karate Kid. And again, I have to ask, "Why would you remake this movie?" If you just can't get enough of the concept, you not only have the original movie, but all three sequels! One thing I will give the new movie props for, though, is that they cast Jackie Chan in the Pat Morita role from the original (which is what I call an inspired bit of casting!). The fact that it stars Jackie Chan is enough to make we want to see it, but I still just can't get over the fact that the someone thought this movie needed to get remade.

Finally we get the movie that's bugging me the most, the new Clash of the Titans. Now I fully admit that I will almost certainly go see this movie opening weekend (if for no other reason than this is absolutely one of my favorite genres of film), but I will more than likely do my best to simply ignore the title and pretend I'm watching a completely new movie. This remake bothers me for a few reasons. For starters, I loved the original movie (hard to believe I was only 9 years old when that came out!). And from what I've seen in the trailers, this movie looks like it has very little in common with the original. Secondly (and more importantly), I don't care how jam-packed the movie is with super high speed visual effects, no amount of CGI will EVER replace the magic of Ray Harryhausen's miniatures effects. For wonderful, classic sci-fi and fantasy movies, check out any film he's been involved with.

Obviously these are but a tiny few examples of the many, many, many film remakes that Hollywood has done or is planning to do. And I'm sure it will only continue to get worse. I'm waiting for (and dreading) the day that some idiot decides that such classics as Gone With The Wind or Casablanca or Citizen Kane are ready for a modern makeover. You can defend it any way you want -- we've got better visual effects now, few if any movie-goers are still around who saw the originals in theaters (if that's your argument, then just re-release the originals!), younger audiences want to a newer, updated version, whatever. At the end of the day, regardless of how good your movie is, you're still just redoing something that's already been done (and in too many cases, been done really, really well). If it's a good concept, then here's a thought -- go ahead and use the basic concept, but make an original movie with it! In the memorable words of Albert Einstein (and this is probably one of my all time favorite quotes) -- "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." This is an idea Hollywood truly needs to embrace; if you're looking at a classic story or film, instead of just redoing it, try and do something new and different and original with it (a perfect example of this very rare occurrence is how James Cameron took the basic story idea of Dances with Wolves and turned it into Avatar, an amazing and (at least in my mind) very original film). Of course, there are sadly very few filmmakers out there of his caliber.

Okay, so that's my rant for the week. I'm thinking next week I may try and get away from the rants, and write something positive for once (shocking, I know). After all, there's plenty to love about movies (or else I wouldn't be at the theater every weekend). We'll just have to see what the week brings.

Tiddlywinks: The Movie!

Okay, so they're not actually making a tiddlywinks movie (well, not that I've heard of, but sadly it wouldn't surprise me too much). But the purpose of my title to today's post is that this is a about how silly Hollywood is getting with their film sources of late. And so begins what could likely be the first of many, many rants of mine about the complete and utter lack of creativity in Hollywood nowadays. It's scary how few completely original, non-sequel, not adapted from a book/comic/video game/TV show scripts we're seeing these days. But it's a real sign of just how bad things are when Hollywood is so close to the bottom of the idea barrel that they're now going to BOARD GAMES for inspiration!

Which is not to say that they won't be good movies. Hell, Pirates of the Caribbean was based on a Disneyland theme park ride, and that was a great trilogy (and yes, regardless of what all you naysayers out there might have to say on the subject, I thoroughly enjoyed all three movies). But when I hear that they're developing a movie based on Candy Land, I can't help but think, "Candy Land? Really???" Yes, I'm assuming that this will be a children's movie, and it's very possible that it will be a very well done movie that the kiddies will just eat up (yes, pun intended). But regardless, my gut reaction still has to be, "Candy Land? Really???" And you know that if it's even halfway successful, the Chutes and Ladders movie won't be far behind. And just imagine what an action-packed kids' adventure movie you could turn Hungry Hungry Hippos into (ooh, maybe I should jump onto the bandwagon. I bet I could write a killer Hungry Hungry Hippos script!!).

Next on my list of "What were they thinking?" movies is Monopoly, which is being directed by Ridley Scott of all people! Now I'm sure he'll have an original take on the concept, and there are certainly other great films within that arena (such as Wall Street). And if you're looking to make that sort of movie, if you want to make a film that tackles our current economic woes, or whatever, then by all means, make that movie. But why on Earth would you name the film after a board game?! I don't care how popular said board game is, do you really think that's going to make more people want to go see your movie?

Another board game inspired movie being developed is Battleship. Now, your first thought might be the same as that for Candy Land -- "Battleship? Really?" That was my initial reaction. But then I thought about it a little more, and decided that actually, Battleship could be a great inspiration for a movie. I'm a big fan of war movies of any kind, and so the idea of a movie about opposing naval fleets trying to destroy each other has some serious potential in my mind. But leave it to Hollywood in their infinite wisdom to take this great idea and COMPLETELY screw it up. From what I've read online, the movie was originally intended to be a WWII film, which I think would have been fantastic. But then they decided that no, instead it needed to be a modern day film. Which, while not as cool (at least to me), I can still easily get behind. But oh no, we can't stop there. No, we get one more big change. The only thing I can figure is that some idiot producer got a raging hard-on watching the air craft carrier getting destroyed during the Transformers 2 trailer, because now the enemy fleet in Battleship will be ALIENS!!! That's right, ALIENS!! Are you frakking kidding me?! Okay, maybe there's an updated version of the game out now that I've never played, but I don't remember one of the teams on Battleship being aliens! And while I've enjoyed director Peter Berg's previous films enough to give him the benefit of the doubt (at least until I see the first trailers), at this point this movie just screams terrible.

Before I close, I'd like to touch on one final board game inspired movie that's coming out, and that would be the new version of Clue, tentatively due out some time in 2011. Firstly, I have to say that like Battleship, I think this game is actually a great source for a movie. Here's the problem -- it's already been made into a movie! The original Clue, made way back in 1985, was well cast, extremely funny (admittedly in a silly, very over-the-top way that's probably not everyone's cup of tea, but I loved it), and just all around a good movie. I don't care if it's been 25 years ago now, you don't need to make it again (which leads me into a whole new rant about unnecessary movie remakes, but I'll save that one for a later date). The big question, then, is this -- is the new one going to be a remake of the old one, or a completely original take on the game? Because if they decide to do it as a serious, Agatha Christie inspired murder mystery, I could probably get behind that. But let's face it, this is Hollywood -- what are chances they'd actually write a serious script for a movie based on a board game? But we'll just have to wait until the trailers for this one come out, and see if it turns out to be as completely pointless a remake as I'm expecting it to be.

And so that's my rant for the week. I'm thinking now that an alternate title could have been "Hasbro Buys Out Hollywood" since it feels like that's what happened. There had to have been some kind of sweetheart deal made somewhere for so many of their games to suddenly get the Hollywood treatment. But then again, maybe Hollywood went begging to Hasbro on their knees, pleading, "Can we PLEASE turn your games into movies? We don't have anywhere else to go!" Which really makes you wonder, where do they go from there? When we get to the point where "Connect Four: The Motion Picture" is number one at the box office, then where will Hollywood go for ideas? At this point, I'm waiting for someone to start looking at old 80s music videos and saying, "Hey, I bet we could turn that into a feature film." Or maybe one day we'll see Tony the Tiger or Toucan Sam getting their due as Hollywood movie stars. I guess only time will tell.

All Time Box Office Records

So not a single comment on my previous post. Looks like I'm just talking to myself (but I'm okay with that). Anyways, moving on.

So the news was just released -- Avatar has just eclipsed Titanic to become the highest grossing domestic film of all time. And I think that's great; Avatar is a phenomenal movie. However, there's one tiny little factor in this accolade that no one ever bothers to take into account (and it's the reason I've never been that in awe of Titanic as the "highest grossing movie of all time"), and that is a little thing call ticket price.

Yes, by any standards, Avatar has been hugely successful. But let's not forget that not only did Titanic come out 12 years ago (when ticket prices were several dollars cheaper on average than they are now), but it also didn't have the 3D price bump with it, which is another several dollars per ticket. Now let's jump back even further, to a movie like Star Wars, which came out a full 20 years before Titanic, when ticket prices were even lower!

Here are some statistics to ponder: according to Box Office Mojo (a great site for movie statistics), the average movie ticket price in 1977 (the year Star Wars came out) was $2.23 (which is honestly hard to imagine). The current average ticket price is $7.46. Now in my experience it's an extra $3 for 3D films, making the average price for a ticket to Avatar $10.46. Which means it takes 4.7 Star Wars tickets to bring in the same amount of money as just one Avatar ticket.

So what does all this mean? I would say that while simple grosses are fine for those Hollywood bean counters who only really care about the bottom line, for those of us in the general movie-watching public, who are probably more interested in a movie's popularity (which would be based on tickets sold, as opposed to how much money those tickets made), these box office records are really misleading.

For example, let's look at an old time classic -- Gone with the Wind. On the all-time domestic gross list, it only ranks at #99, so it's barely in the top 100. But this movie came out waaaay back in 1939, when the average price of a movie ticket was only $.39. That's right -- just 39 cents to see a movie! So clearly there's no way this movie could ever compete with a film that's charging over $10 on average per person. Now you adjust Gone with the Wind's domestic gross to current ticket prices, and suddenly IT becomes the highest grossing movie of all time. It's domestic gross, adjusted for ticket price inflation? That would be $1.5 BILLION dollars (and that's DOMESTIC gross). Which means that in terms of ticket sales, Gone with the Wind did at least 2 1/2 times the business that Avatar has done.

For anyone who's curious, you can check out Box Office Mojo's all-time records (they track both domestic and worldwide grosses, plus the adjusted for inflation grosses). Of note is the fact that when you look at the adjusted grosses, Titanic only ranks 6th, and Avatar is still only at 21st (and The Dark Knight, which is ranked 3rd in highest domestic gross, ranks only 28th when ticket price inflation is taken into account).

And so, in summary, while on these records are nice promotional tools for the movie producers, and give the entertainment reporters something to talk about, at the end of the day they all need to be taken with a grain of salt. But that's just my view on things. And thus concludes my rant for the day. :-)

I'm back!!!

So after an almost 2 year hiatus (wow, has it really been THAT long?), I've decided to try and revive the ol' movie blog. Of late I've found myself posting mini-reviews on Facebook for movies I'd seen, but more and more I'm coming to the conclusion that you just can't put enough details into a Facebook post to do a full review. So I've decided to start putting my reviews here, and then just linking over to my blog posts on Facebook (and who knows, maybe that way I'll end up with more than 2 readers of my blog!).

One of the other changes I think I'd like to make as I reboot my blog is to try and get away from just doing the weekly movie review (which was the habit I'd gotten into previously that was kind of the reason I lost interest in doing the blog), and focus a little more on general movie commentary -- do some ranting about things I love (like foreign films and under-rated B movies) and things I hate (like movie critics and Hollywood's complete lack of creativity of late). As such, I'll probably leave some of my reviews from the weekend over on Facebook (for movies I don't really have a whole lot to say about), and save the blog for the longer, more involved reviews.

So to start things off, I think I'm going to do a little survey (if for no other reason than just to see who, if anyone, comes over from Facebook to read my blog). So the question I'd like to pose to those of you actually still reading is this -- what would say is your favorite under-rated film genre? When I say "under-rated", I mean step away from the big categories like action movies, romantic comedies, Disney/Pixar family films -- your standard summer and holiday fare that gets plenty of press -- and think about the more niche genres: westerns, heist movies, quirky indie dramas, film noir, etc. What category of film do you think has been ignored by Hollywood lately, that you'd like to see more of? And what's your favorite film in that genre? In my next post I'll talk about one of my favorite genres (one of many favorites, as I'm all about the genre films); in the meantime, let's see if I get any comments to this one. :)

Movies Movies Movies

So I managed to see 3 of the 4 movies I’d wanted to see weekend before last (I couldn’t motivate myself to do a double feature on Sunday like I did on Saturday, so TMNT had to wait until last weekend). The movie I saw on Sunday was one that had come out the weekend prior, and that is Sandra Bullock’s new mystery/thriller Premonition. Sadly this was a pretty mediocre flick. The basic premise is that every morning when Sandra Bullock wakes up, she finds herself jumping back and forth between before and after a horrible car wreck that caused the death of her husband. She spends the movie first convincing herself she’s not insane, then trying to figure out how to prevent her husband from being killed.

In a word, the movie is confusing. You really have to pay attention to keep track of what’s going on, and to keep up with what’s pre-accident and what’s post-accident. And once everything finally plays out, the ending just isn’t that satisfying (especially with all the work you've put in to keep up with what's going on), and the movie just kind of ends. While an interesting idea, there were just too many things that didn’t really add up, and a lot of potential to do interesting things with the story that just never play out. There are definitely worse movies out there, but this one didn’t really impress me much.

On Saturday, I saw two much better movies. They were also two very, very different kinds of movies. The first was the sci-fi family movie The Last Mimzi. A young brother and sister discover a box sent from the future. In it are items that somehow grant them extraordinary powers. They learn from one of the items (a stuffed rabbit) that they must build a bridge to the future to save humanity. And things progress from there.

While not a spectacular movie, I’d say this is still a very solid family drama. And there’s a lot more to the story than your average animated kids’ movie, so it’s a little easier for the parents to sit through, while still being a movie that I think most kids can enjoy. It’s probably over the heads of really young children, but otherwise this is certainly a movie that the whole family can enjoy.

The other movie that I saw along with The Last Mimzy was the action thriller Shooter (which is definitely NOT a family movie). I really, really enjoyed this movie. Admittedly, it doesn’t truly stand out from any of the other action thrillers out there as far as story and direction goes, and while the acting is solid (with a great cast) there are no real stand-out performances. But there are a couple of things about the movie that I loved that made it stand out for me. The first is that the main character is a sniper, and there are a number of great scenes where he shows off his sniper skills, which I just loved (especially since I know a couple of snipers). The other part of the movie that just put a smile on my face is when they reveal that the mastermind of the big conspiracy is a Senator from Montana. This was especially gratifying watching the movie in a theater, specifically when a fellow audience member yelled out, “Burns!” when this bit of info is revealed, which got a chuckle from most of the rest of the audience (Conrad Burns, for those who don’t know, was until recently a Montana Senator (he finally got the boot during the last election) who, as far as I’m concerned, is about as corrupt as you’re likely to find in Washington, so hearing his name called out was pretty funny, IMHO).

So if you’re from Montana and you enjoy a good action sniper movie, this is certainly one to check out. And even if you’re not from Montana, go ahead and see it anyways. :)

So last weekend there was nothing new out that I had any real interest in seeing, so I managed to catch the one movie I hadn’t gotten around to seeing the weekend before, and that was TMNT (oh, and I also found time to see 300 a second time – man, I love that movie!!). After passing on it the weekend before, I had thought about just skipping TMNT at the theater (since I was never a huge fan of the original movies), but a couple of friends of mine convinced me it was worth seeing, and since there wasn’t much else out I wanted to see, I decided to give it a go. And I’m glad I did. This was an enjoyable, fun movie. The CGI is spectacular, the voice performances are solid (if they didn’t get the actors from the cartoon show, they got people who’s voices sound pretty close), and the storyline is surprisingly well thought out. And as my buddy commented to me, it was a nice surprise to see that this wasn’t a remake of the original movie, or an attempt to re-imagine or restart the franchise from scratch. The movie very much takes place after the story lines of the original movies and cartoons. Their main villain Shredder has already been defeated, and they are facing a brand new set of foes (although the Foot ninja clan still plays a part in the film).

This is another good movie to take the kids to. It’s action-packed, it’s funny, and just all-around enjoyable to watch. Oh, and here’s a little side tidbit about the movie that I read on imdb that I thought was amusing enough to share. Not surprisingly, when the movie was first released their were comments/criticisms made about this being just an excuse to push the toy line and other merchandising avenues (because hey, let’s face it, what’s the point of having a popular movie these days without cashing in on the merchandising opportunities, right?). The creators of the movie responded by saying that the reverse is actually the case here, that the movie wasn’t designed to push the merchandising, but that the merchandising that’s already out there is what prompted the making of the movie. They were still seeing strong enough sales from Turtles’ cartoons and action figures, etc. that they felt it only made sense to bring the characters back to the big screen for another go around (and from their opening weekend numbers, it looks like they were right – quite a few of those toy-buying kids rushed out to the theaters to see the movie).

Well, that’s about it for this entry. Coming up this weekend we have the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez exploitation double-feature extravaganza Grindhouse!! While I do admit this movie(s) has the potential to just be horribly dumb, I’m still super excited to see it. While I’m sure that it will indeed be really dumb (and I’m sure the critics will absolutely hate it), I’m also expecting (hoping) that it’s just going to be a hell of a lot of fun! So stayed tuned right here for that review, coming your way soon!!