A place to share my love of music, film, books, and comics, and photography (mainly of motorsport)It all sites alongside my main blog on marketing, social media and seo at http://www.thewayoftheweb.net and my videogame blogs at www.hotmodmedia.com
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I absolutely loathe remakes of films and movies
I’ve recently been reminded of why I utterly loathe the habit of remaking a good TV series or film either becuase the original is old, and noone wants to watch something filmed with classic actors in just 2D anymore, or because audiences are too stupid to bother with subtitles.
Some cases in point:
- Shameless: Not only is it wasting what could have been productive time for an actor as talented as William H Macy, but More4 are reimporting back to English views. FFS - not only is Shameless original English, and incredibly popular, but it was even on Channel 4!
- Wallander: A great Swedish detective series rooted in Scandinavian society and values. So because you couldn’t really transplant it to the UK, instead the BBC shipped out Kenneth Branagh and co to act as the world’s most expensive and confusing subtitle replacements, speaking English whilst watching Swedish TV and holding Swedish newspapers.
- The Killing: See Wallander. It was great because of the ways Danish society affected the storyline, you muppets.
- Taxi: It was a fun French car film, which grew into more absurdity in it’s sequels. But nothing quite absurd as Queen Latifah as a high-speed taxi driver chasing supermodels with blue screen techniques from the 1950s behind her. Just check out the original and the scooter chase for the difference.
- Get Carter: Because obviously Michael Caine and Newcastle could be replaced by Sly Stallone.
- Alfie: Replace Sly Stallone with Jude Law and you get the idea.
And there are so, so many more. And yet apparently Hollywood has something like 50 or 75 remakes currently underway…
It’s actually much harder to think of some good ones…
Watched ‘Up In The Air’ last night, and though it was pretty good, although not brilliant. George Clooney always seems to fall into the ‘suave mature business executive’ role, and he did a reasonable job of it, but he didn’t necessarily give much impression of anything going on behind his charming smile. Anna Hendricks was great as the young starter at the company, and Vera Farmiga was also a good female lead…
The film itself centres around Clooney as Ryan Bingham, an exec sent to companies to do the firing of employees. He’s in the air almost every day, hence the title, and comes under threat from Hendrick’s character suggesting teleconferencing as a cost-saving alternative. Meanwhile he falls for Vera Farmiga as a fellow exec constantly on planes…
And that’s about it. It’s got some nice amusing moments, Farmiga and Hendricks are certainly not unpleasant to watch, and it’s funny seeing a film (Originally based on a Walter Kirn) which espouses living out of a backpack, when so many techy people are now selling their possessions and doing exactly that!
It’s a good film, nicely shot, and making the most of the actors and their locations, but I don’t quite get the reviews which have said it’s full of emotion - hidden emotion, maybe, but neither Clooney or Farmiga go beyond the consumate professionalism of the executive class….
