Pointless Remakes of Classic Films

[papeetepatrick]

>....and the original, though not a masterpiece, was quite good in many ways.

>I don't see it as needing a remake.

Must agree with you there..... the original is quite wonderful.

(Though I'll try anything once with Hugh Jackman.... )

Hey, sz--and remember another wonderful thing about the original--it's got Jacques D'Amboise.

[papeetepatrick]

Discussing scores with sidwich on the 'Musical Scores' thread, I thought of a musical that really does need to be remade--or made the first time, actually. That is 'Irma la Douce', a most unique musical from Paris by Marguerite Monnot (music) and Alexandre Breffort (lyrics). I've had the old LP since I was a child and it's wonderful, with delicious songs. I think very little of the Shirley MacLaine movie, and even though she's not quite as wonderful a singer as she has often said she is, she's quite good enough to have sung those songs, so I have no idea why they made this mostly silly bit of fluff without the main thing that would have given it real quality. The film of 'Fanny' uses the Harold Rome score only as background music, but I think it works anyway as the romance in Marseilles that it is. Of course, remaking 'Irma la Douce' as a musical is the last thing that's going to happen unless all of these upcoming musical projects are as outrageously successful as some of the big ones have just been.

[miliosr]

Since I started this thread almost two years ago (!) with a diatribe against Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween, I thought it would be fitting to weigh in about Rob Zombie's remake/reboot of the original Halloween II.

***SPOILERS AHEAD - Stop reading if you don't want to know***

Like the original Halloween II, Rob Zombie's Halloween 2 picks up where the first film left off but then moves forward one year to the next year's Halloween. The first 20 minutes or so are actually quite good (and better than anything in Zombie's prior Halloween effort.) Basically, he condenses the original remake into 20 minutes of the new film. In both films, Michael Myers follows his sister Laurie to the hospital to which she has been taken, decimates the hospital staff and then comes after his sister for a second time. The chase through the now-abandoned hospital corridors was a highlight of the original film and remains so with this one. Unfortunately, in the new remake, the entire sequence proves to be Laurie's nightmare. She wakes up from her nightmare and we learn that the plot has jumped ahead one year.

Up until this point, the film had promise. But then the train goes off of the tracks. On a macro level, Rob Zombie couldn't decide if he was going his own way with this sequel or if he was going to adhere to established Halloween canon. He tries to do both and the result is an unwieldy combination of the two.

On a micro level, there are all sorts of problems:

1) The lead "heroine" is self-absorbed, foul-mouthed and generally hopeless. It's tough to get invested in a horror movie when the heroine's girlfriend (Annie) is more likeable and sympathetic than the heroine.

2) The murders are VERY brutal but not really frightening. Plus, there are too many of them. By my count, there were 17 (!) human murders (and a murder of a dog!!) True horror gains nothing from huge body counts -- the brain tunes out at a certain point. And some of the murders felt like they were added just to pad the film's running time (i.e. Michael Myers w/ three rednecks in a field, Michael Myers w/ three employees of a strip club, etc.)

3) As in Rob Zombie's first effort, the characters are unbelievably foul-mouthed to the point that the non-stop swearing takes you right out of the storyline.

4) Again, as in his first effort, Zombie has no feel for the special atmosphere of Halloween or the autumnal season. Really, apart from a few decorations on houses, you would never even know it was Halloween. And that haze peculiar to October/autumn is nowhere to be found.

5) Michael Myers appears entirely too much in this film. Michael always works best when you don't see him and/or he is there but he's playing tricks on his victims before he kills them. This Michael is too much like Jason from the Friday the 13th series -- a superhuman killing machine. This may seem like a distinction without a difference but there is one -- Michael Myers and Jason are very different characters and the Halloween/Friday the 13th franchises are very different franchises.

I could go on but it would be pointless. I don't think Rob Zombie is the right director for this particular franchise. If the producers opt to make a third film, they should get a different director:

Grade for the first 20 minutes: B+

Grade for the remaining 85 minutes: F

Overall grade: D

[dirac]

I caught Zombie's remake of the first Halloween on cable not long ago and I agree with you in full, miliosr. No atmosphere, no shivers, just brutality and the tedious spelling out of things that don't really need to be spelled out.

I think Zombie is one of those horror film directors, like Eli Roth, who ramp up on the killings because they don't have the ability or ingenuity of a Carpenter or Craven to create a genuine chill or find a new way to make the audience jump in their seats.

For example, I think for all the technological advances and Lana Turner's glamour, the remake of "The Merry Widow" is far, far weaker than the early sound version with Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier directed by Ernst Lubtisch. Lubitsch directed a classic, primitive sound and all.

It certainly helps when you've got MacDonald and Chevalier to work with instead of Turner and Lamas.

[PeggyR]

How about the remake of The Manchurian Candidate?

[dirac]

I thought it was okay, PeggyR. Not as good as the original but not a waste of money, either. But it lacked most of the things that made the Frankenheimer version so unexpected and unusual - at once oddball and chilling. I thought the second version made better use and sense of the Janet Leigh character and Jeffrey Wright’s veteran was a real standout – his torments so overpowering that he seems like a revenant, and yet still completely human and poignant.