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Airbolt 
"teil mann, teil maschine"
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 Posted - 05/04/2007 : 23:55:44
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If a film becomes highly associated with the zeitgeist of a particular time and/or place should it be left well alone?
As Michael Caine happens to be on TV , i am reminded of the remakes of " The Italian Job" and " Get Carter ". Both these films have a strong cult following both as quality examples of their genres and as catching different views of England in the 1960's
The Italian Job is almost a parody of " cheeky cockney criminals " ( tm Guy Ritchie )let loose in a stereotype-version of Italy ( all waving hands and grossly incompetent ). Even the prison is a comic-opera version of reality being run by the camp figure of Noel Coward. Everyone remembers the Minis . Theres a rather nasty line about Italians living in England but overall it all takes place in a 1960's that only really existed on screen.
Get Carteris a completely different vision of England . Set in 1971 it reflects the death of the 1960's in a gritty revenger based in the grim backstreets of Newcastle. At that time , the main industries of that area were feeling the chilly winds of recession and closure. The optimism of the 1960's was dead. Carter moves in and out of a run-down landscape like a force of nature bringing misery to friend and foe alike.
They are icons of their time in the same way as " Wall Street " caught hold of the business ethics of the 1990s.
The remake of the Italian Job was a competent action film with a rather uninvolved Mark Wahlberg failing to outshine Michael Caine for charisma. As for the Sly remake of Get Carter , i haven't seen nor do i feel tempted.
I haven't even mentioned " Alfie "!
Anyway , i ramble on . Please feel free to muse on remaking iconic films and why it will never stop if theres a Buck to be made! |
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ragingfluff 
"Currently lost in Canada"
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Posted - 05/05/2007 : 16:24:58
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Most remakes are unnecessary garbage and generally a waste of time and talent, and a sure sign that studios would rather rehash old stories that they already own than pay for something new. I know there's a theory that every generation somehow "deserves" a "reimagining" of an old classic, but that's bollocks; would anyone dare remake the Godfather? Citizen Kane? Blade Runner? Alien? To Kill A Mockingbird?
Mind you, they did a remake of Psycho, and it was two hours of my life I'll never get back.
I caught the remake of Get Carter at about two in the morning (an indication of how bad it is). It's absolute crap from start to finish, filmed in a pseudo "stylistic" manner by some A.D.D. afflicted idiot from the MTV generation. I'm not interested in seeing Stallone trying to act, and unlike the original, I really could care less about his character's situation. Caine was an absolute bastard in the original, but totally watchable and he certainly knew how to perform so that you can't help feel for him. He pops up in the remake for about 30 seconds, and you can tell he doesn't even want to be there. He was asked about the remake; said he heard it was total shit, but seeing as he never bothered to watch it he wouldn't know...that should tell you all you need to know.
Agree with Airbolt about the Italian Job too.
Other awful remakes:
Planet of the Apes
War of the Worlds
The Time Machine
Psycho (what were they thinking?)
Some good remakes:
The Fly
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Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
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Posted - 05/05/2007 : 22:59:48
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I think the one reason to remake a film is if the filmmakers and the actors feel they can bring a different spin to the material or say something new about the story that wasn't covered in the previous movie. It's understandable, for instance, for there to be multiple film versions of certain novels or plays because there's so much room for creative reinterpretation of the source material. If there had to be a remake of Psycho, for instance, the smart move would have been to go back to the source novel and give us something DIFFERENT from the Hitchcock film. Hitchcock already gave us his version of the material; Gus Van Sant should have rebuilt his movie from the ground up and given us a Psycho we HADN'T seen.
Granted, a lot of films are tied to specific times in history and don't easily translate to other eras. A remake of Easy Rider, for instance, might be tempting on the surface -- cool guys on cool bikes with cool music -- but it would be a pale imitation of the original. Instead of being a "zeitgeist movie," a remake would be "just another movie."
I think one of the things that made Tobe Hooper's original Texas Chain Saw Massacre so engrossing is that it came out in the wake of Charles Manson, Altamont, and Watergate, not to mention the Vietnam War, which was coming to its close as this movie was being released. This was the era when the idealistic 1960s dream had definitely turned sour. In his "Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas," Hunter S. Thompson had written about the 1960s generation being unable to face the "grim meathook realities" that awaited them in the 1970s. Well, here was a movie in which actual hippies wound up on actual meathooks. Just a few years previous, there had been an upbeat pop song called "Hitchin' a Ride" about the joys of hitchhiking, and here was a movie whose most deranged character was a hitchhiker. There's no way that the remake could recapture that sense of paranoia and disenchantment.
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Edited by - Joe Blevins on 05/05/2007 23:01:28 |
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ChocolateLady 
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 05/06/2007 : 07:59:15
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Most remakes are horrid, I agree. However, I didn't think the remake of The Italian Job was that bad, actually. I also think that Pierce Brosnan's remake of The Thomas Crown Affair was better than the Steve McQueen version - mostly because the remake fixed a problem with the original's basic plot that never made sense to me. There is one other remake that I think was pretty good - that was the Jamie Lee Curtis version of Freaky Friday. Very likeable and nicely updated.
But most remakes are horrid. Take for instance the Nutty Professor remake(s). Why bother, really? Jerry Lewis' original was a classic. Also, I could have murdered Steve Martin for remaking Father of the Bride and Father's Little Dividend. How anyone could think they could best Spencer Tracy is totally beyond me. Did he not know that the originals were directed Vincente Minnelli? Plus there was no one more beautiful than the young Elizabeth Taylor in those movies - just breathtaking. Martin took all the subtleties and beauty out of the original screenplays and turned them into crass slapstick, that wasn't even done all that well, either. AARRGGHH!
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 05/06/2007 : 08:19:13
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The only reason is money. People pay to see remakes. The end. 
Actually I think Burton's Planet of the Apes was actually reasonably good. I suspect it would have been more liked if it had been named something like The Ape Planet, or Time Travel in Apeland etc. Calling it POTA simply annoyed people who were actually expecting a remake, when in fact they got a whole new movie with a few essential similarities; time travel and ape dominion over humans. Not much else was the same. But how much money would Burton have made if he'd named it something else?  |
Edited by - Sean on 05/06/2007 08:20:06 |
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Airbolt
"teil mann, teil maschine"
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Posted - 05/07/2007 : 01:30:25
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quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
The only reason is money. People pay to see remakes. The end.
Actually I think Burton's Planet of the Apes was actually reasonably good. I suspect it would have been more liked if it had been named something like The Ape Planet, or Time Travel in Apeland etc. Calling it POTA simply annoyed people who were actually expecting a remake, when in fact they got a whole new movie with a few essential similarities; time travel and ape dominion over humans. Not much else was the same. But how much money would Burton have made if he'd named it something else?
"Monkeying around with time" ? or howsabout " Banana Republic" ? |
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MisterBadIdea
"PLZ GET MILK, KTHXBYE"
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Posted - 05/07/2007 : 16:20:46
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I want remakes! Bring on the remakes! Good remakes, bad remakes, remakes of classics, remakes of crap, remakes of remakes, I want 'em. Re! Makes! Now!
I'm only kidding a little on this, I just don't see why anyone has any objection to remakes. The original is still there. It's not going to be damaged by anything. If anything, remakes help point me in the directions of good movies I may have overlooked, such as John Carpenter's "The Fog." I've seen quite a few good remakes ("The Fly" was already mentioned, there's also the new "Dawn of the Dead," and quite frankly the new "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" was pretty good too).
I also once read a sterling defense of Gus Van Sant's eternally misunderstood remake of "Psycho." The short of it was, Hitchcock's "Psycho" was about Norman and Marion and hotels and insane people and crazy moms and so on, but Van Sant's "Psycho" wasn't about any of that; it was about Hitchcock's "Psycho." Rest assured that they are NOT the same movie.
As to the original question, I say, yeah, bring back those movies that are entirely caught in another age. You've got two choices with it. One, you can take it into the new era, which will provide a wonderfully different take on the subject matter; or you can try to evoke that movie's zeitgeist, work the whole retro spin on it. Either way is a potentially fruitful take, I think.
Also, people disliked Burton's "Planet of the Apes" because of the horrid ending. That's all I can even remember about it. |
Edited by - MisterBadIdea on 05/07/2007 16:21:44 |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 05/08/2007 : 01:42:22
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quote:
Originally posted by MisterBadIdea
...I just don't see why anyone has any objection to remakes. The original is still there.
The main problem I have with remakes is that the less-discerning movie goers often have no idea that they've seen a remake. E.g., I heard someone say once "Yeah, I saw The Wicker Man and it wasn't very good." They had no idea that they saw a B-grade remake of a classic. They're being ripped off, a feat made possible by their ignorance and laziness (or more to the point, they can't be bothered seeking out good movies and would rather someone else ram garbage down their throats, which they're happy about as long as the garbage contains the same names/faces that they read about in the gossip magazines every day).quote:
Also, people disliked Burton's "Planet of the Apes" because of the horrid ending. That's all I can even remember about it.
It was an excellent ending. Many didn't understand it though, particularly those who were expecting it to be similar to the 1968 ending. We've had lengthy discussions about this one in the fourum in the past; the topic comes up about once a year.  |
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ChocolateLady
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 05/08/2007 : 06:36:20
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quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
I heard someone say once "Yeah, I saw The Wicker Man and it wasn't very good." They had no idea that they saw a B-grade remake of a classic. They're being ripped off, a feat made possible by their ignorance and laziness (or more to the point, they can't be bothered seeking out good movies and would rather someone else ram garbage down their throats, which they're happy about as long as the garbage contains the same names/faces that they read about in the gossip magazines every day.
In all fairness, the feat is also made possible by the viewer's age - meaning, an audience that goes to see Eddie Murphy's Nutty Professor or Robin Williams' Flubber probably wasn't even born when Jerry Lewis and Fred MacMurray did the originals.
And sometimes the feat is made possible because the original was a sleeper. For instance the original Fun with Dick and Jane with George Segal and Jane Fonda. Since it wasn't a blockbuster hit, I guess the studio thought it was only fair to give the public a version that might get the recognition the script deserves.
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Airbolt
"teil mann, teil maschine"
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Posted - 05/10/2007 : 23:24:13
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Taking a slight detour . How about a film/series that while perhaps not a classic is nevertheless " of it's time ". I remember " The Man from UNCLE" as a very tongue-in-cheek sixties Bond-a-like ( I was young enough to run out of the house and play " Man from Uncle " with friends ).
They tried to bring it back with the original stars and it just looked tired.
The options ( some of which have been mentioned earlierin the thread)
would be
* Set it in the world of today and play it in a light hearted tone
* Set it in the sixties and keep the tone
* Go austin powers with it and basically take the p*** out of it ( see also Starsky and Hutch )
Hmm - maybe it's the right vehicle for Ben Affleck and Matt Damon? Isn't Kevin Smiths career in the doldrums? ( just kidding! ) |
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Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
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Posted - 05/11/2007 : 00:28:21
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If I were a director assigned to make a Man from U.N.C.L.E. movie, I believe I would keep the movie in the 1960s and try to replicate the tone of the series. U.N.C.L.E., of course, is already one step closer to parody than something like the Bond films (which are already semi-parodic to begin with). It's not quite to the level of farcical Austin Powers silliness, either. Let's say Napoleon Solo is somewhere in between James Bond and Austin Powers, and that's where I'd keep him. The show is intended to work as a legitimate spy/action show with overtones of parody, and that tone seems appropriate for the movie. If anything, I'd nudge it in the direction of action rather than comedy because I wouldn't want it to be seen as an Austin wannabe. I'd keep it light, but not slapsticky or silly.
The trouble here is, if you try to emphasize the action, you risk being called a Mission: Impossible ripoff. If you emphasize the comedy, you risk being an Austin Powers ripoff. It's a lose-lose proposition. |
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ChocolateLady
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 05/11/2007 : 09:07:15
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Trying to make UNCLE into a successful movie would be a difficult task. Look what happened with The Avengers movie - totally flopped. Feinnes was too young and too snobby full of himself, Thurman was too perfectly sexy and full of herself, and they both took themselves far too seriously - the eye twinkle was missing completely.
Like Joe says, it would need perfect tightrope walking to keep an UNCLE movie from having too much slapstick or too much action. In both series the greatest secret weapon the crime fighters always had was their brains, and after that their senses of humour. They came almost close with the I Spy movie, but the casting was all wrong (not to mention that they switched the races of the two main characters).
I think they'd have a better chance of making a movie out of The Prisoner than The Man From UNCLE.
(I had SUCH a crush on Illya Kuryakin back then! When I found out that David McCallum was Scotish I was a bit disappointed - I was so sure he was Russian. I was also VERY young.) |
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Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
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Posted - 05/12/2007 : 00:07:51
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Interesting you should mention I Spy, as I was just about to...
For illustration of the problems inherit in adapting a lighthearted 1960s action show to the big screen for modern audiences, look no further than I Spy. Maintaining that show's light-but-not-too-light tone proved impossible, but certainly not due to lack of effort on behalf of the cast and crew. Perhaps that series belonged entirely to another era. Maybe the charm of the original series seemed deceptively easy, thanks largely to the chemistry between Cosby and Culp.
Occasionally, you can use a movie to be an affectionate parody of an old series, but the original show has to be somewhat naive and sincere. Witness Starsky & Hutch and The Brady Bunch. Their versions of, respectively, 1970s machismo and family togetherness have become charmingly quaint over the years, as have their slang and fashions, making them inviting targets for parody. But U.N.C.L.E. was not similarly naive. It was a knowing, tongue-in-cheek spoof -- "in on the joke," so to speak, so it would not work for these purposes. For the same reason, it would be futile to parody the Batman series of the 1960s. That series is often mistakenly referred to as "campy," but by Susan Sontag's definition, real "camp" has to be unintentional. The satire in the Batman TV show -- i.e. the impossibly unhip, humorless nature of Bruce Wayne and the over-the-top foppishness of his enemies -- was anything but accidental.
It's funny that when I was a kid, I saw Batman as a straight-ahead action show, a fast-paced program about a super hero just like The Adventures of Superman. I didn't respond to it as a comedy on any level. (This was before I'd discovered Mad or Saturday Night Live, of course.) As an adult, all I can see is the parody aspect of the show. |
Edited by - Joe Blevins on 05/12/2007 00:10:54 |
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ragingfluff
"Currently lost in Canada"
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Posted - 05/12/2007 : 18:24:08
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I would love to see the Man from U.N.C.L.E done as a movie, but I agree that the precedent set by the Avengers and I Spy should be avoided at all cost. I deliberately didn't see Thunderbirds because the trailer put me off and the film seemed not to get the premise of the original series, and Lost in Space was just a mess. And I have heard rumous about the Prisoner, but that's another sacred cow that needs to be treated well in a big screen version. I'm excited about Get Smart with Steve Carrell because I think he'll do a great job with the oblivious nature of Maxwell Smart. I would also love to see The Sweeney and The Professionals get the big screen treatment
Oh, and the Time Tunnel, and Land of the Giants |
Edited by - ragingfluff on 05/12/2007 18:27:11 |
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ChocolateLady
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 05/13/2007 : 08:22:30
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quote:
Originally posted by ragingfluff
And I have heard rumous about the Prisoner, but that's another sacred cow that needs to be treated well in a big screen version.
The Prisioner was a serious Sci-Fi drama series and could probably fare quite well if adapted to the big screen.
quote:
I'm excited about Get Smart with Steve Carrell because I think he'll do a great job with the oblivious nature of Maxwell Smart.
I wholehartedly disagree with this. Carrell will be a horrid Maxwell Smart. But what is worse, Anne Hathaway will be a disasterous Agent 99.
quote:
Oh, and the Time Tunnel, and Land of the Giants
Now Time Tunnel might be an interesting movie. I don't remember Land of the Giants. |
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Shiv
"What a Wonderful World"
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Posted - 05/13/2007 : 09:45:24
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quote:
Originally posted by Joe Blevins
It's funny that when I was a kid, I saw Batman as a straight-ahead action show, a fast-paced program about a super hero just like The Adventures of Superman. I didn't respond to it as a comedy on any level. (This was before I'd discovered Mad or Saturday Night Live, of course.) As an adult, all I can see is the parody aspect of the show.
A little off the point - but reading this made me think about The Simpsons and how so many different levels of humour and also pathos are presented. A fan myself, I sometimes wonder what kids actually get out of it when it's being too clever in an adult way. (Don't get me wrong, I'm not putting down the intellect of children - but there are some things that an 8 year old really won't get.) It had never occured to me that the original Batman series might have been written for different audiences too... |
Edited by - Shiv on 05/13/2007 09:46:18 |
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Zeitgeist movies - remake or leave
