Posted on 12/07/2011 6:03:37 PM PST by Sneakyuser
Reboots: The Fugitive, Batman Begins/Dark Knight, Casino Royale, Check. And now... (Read the comments too.)
Yikes!!! Now there's a "blast from the past"! I haven't heard of the Lloyd Thaxton Dance Party in years!
Yea us!!
It’s later. Thanks for posting.
Counting the days....
Come dance with me! ~
Kill me now...
Cool, looks good..
¨Hotel Costa Plenty¨
This is nothing,
How about a “Gone with the Wind” remake starring Lindsay Lohan and Javier Bardem? Now that would be a real piece of crap.
Or “Mr. Smith goes to Washington”, with Ryan Reynolds!
Or “Casablanca” with Shia LaBeouf!
Ryan Reynolds. My Mom! LOVES him. She's watched “The Proposal” ~25 times. IMO, he's a himbo pretty boy, same as Bradley Cooper.
Shia LaBeouf. Talentless. Completely void of appeal.
The Three Stooges. I don't find them particularly funny.
On the plus side, for those who ARE three stooges fans, these guys at least seem to have gotten the look and mannerisms of the characters down pat. I don't mind remakes if the original material is dated and they capture the spirit of the characthers for a modern audience (like the 2009 Star Trek or Sherlock Holmes). I'm cautiously optimistic about the new Dark Shadows too, as they released some production stills and Johnny Depp DOES look the part of Barnabas Collins, unlike the earlier roles Burton gave him of Willy Wonka, The Mad Hatter, etc.
What I hate is when there's some timeless classic and they "reimagine" it by completely destroying what made the original great. These films were imagined right the first time, they didn't need to have the characters vastly changed. I can't think of a "reimagining" yet that I liked. It seems to be Hollywood talk for "we changed everything you liked about the original". The most obvious examples being 'The Pink Panther', the aforementioned 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' ("closer to the book" my @$$!), the 2001 Planet of the Apes (whereas the 2011 Rise of the Rise of Planet of the Apes was true to the original films and was an EXCELLENT update in that it kept the original story but made the Apes like real life apes!), Daniel Craig's ugly brooding James Bond, and Christian Bale's throat-cancer Batman (I know I'm in the minority in disliking the latter two, but the 80s versions of these characters were far superior and more fun to watch, IMO)
In short, there's a valid reason for a remake if the original was a terrible adaptation or is badly dated. But there's no reason to "reinvent" characters that were perfectly done the first time around.
100% agree! I saw a blurb on some entertainment show a few weeks ago that said the formula Hollyweird is going with is mostly remakes, sequels to established franchises and small, lost cost “indie” type films. So, this remake BS isn't going away anytime soon.
The bottom line for me with most, if not all, of these remakes/reboots/reimages of classic flicks is that they are PC’d up and most of the “stars” starring in them can't hold a candle to the original, true stars.
p.s. As far as the Farrelly bros. go, they peaked at “There's Something About Mary” IMO.
This stooges remake is a Farrelly brothers movie.
There's a very simple reason for that. Sequels and remakes have a built in name ID and studies have repeatedly shown that a film with an existing fan base makes more money than a film with an original plot and unknown title. Hollywood is all about what makes money. If people want to stop soulless remakes and inferior sequels from coming out, they've got to STOP watching them. I always warn people to avoid godawful garbage like Steve Martin's Pink Panther and Jack Black's Gulliver's Travels. You know from the trailers the movie is going to be terrible. Don't even illegally download the movie out of curiosity. If people stop watching it, they'll stop making it. I'm proud to say I'm one of the few who avoided seeing Indiana Jones 4 because I KNEW it would be bad and resisted the urge to check it out just for the nostalgia factor. Indy fighting UFOs in the 1950s and having a son played by Shia LeBeaouf just screams BAD MOVIE.
>> The bottom line for me with most, if not all, of these remakes/reboots/reimages of classic flicks is that they are PC’d up and most of the “stars” starring in them can't hold a candle to the original, true stars. <<
Heh. I agree that many of the actors in a remake can't hold a candle to the original (and I will argue to my dying breathe that Jack Nicholson played a better JOKER -- at least the classic DC comics version -- than Heath Ledger, no matter how much worship the latter gets because he died before the movie came out). There are exceptions to the rule, of course, but usually that's because the original film was underwhelming to begin with. Of course, many of these actors in remakes had distinguish careers of their own and were critically acclaimed until they let fame go to their head and tried to step into the shoes and play a role that already been played to perfection by someone else. The worse offenders are Steve Martin and Adam Sadler -- between the two of them, they've probably ruined about a dozen classics. And there's the argument that "the remake didn't harm anything because the original is still there for people to enjoy", but the fact is that the remake upstages the original and a new generation grows up identifies the piece of %$#$*& remake as the only version of the story they've ever known. I talked to a 19 year old the other day who immediately identified The Pink Panther franchise as a Steve Martin vehicle and had no idea that Peter Sellers had played the part before him.
>> As far as the Farrelly bros. go, they peaked at “There's Something About Mary” IMO. This stooges remake is a Farrelly brothers movie. <<
Ohhh. Well, they certainly are the right types for that kind of material (over-the-top, idiotic, pointless slapslick). It reminds me of a few years ago when I speculated why there hadn't been a remake of "The Great Gatsby" in years considering the movie had been made at least 3 times but the most recent theatrical version was the 1974 Robert Redford vehicle. Well I should have known better than to say it aloud, because some Hollywood suit picked up on the idea and now we have a Great Gatsby remake coming out next year starring Leonardo DiCaprio (and if you're read the book and are familiar with the character of Jay Gatsby, you'll realize that they finally found a part that pretty boy self-important Hollywood snob DiCaprio is PERFECT for, in much the same way Clooney is the perfect to play a loudmouth damaging liberal fraud in that new film "The Ides of March", which I refuse to see). Both Clooney and DiCaprio can play themselves. But, of course, the remake is directed by Baz Luhrmann (known for flashy colorful, action-packed avante-garde roller coast ride movies)... and it's in... 3D!!! Sorry Hollywood, don't think F. Scott Fitzgerald had that in mind. I'll pass on that one as well. Reading it in H.S. and seeing the 1974 film is enough for me.
In many cases, there's a old film that genuinely could use a new version to connect with modern audiences, but the problem is the suits in Hollywood ruin the potential they have and waste $200 million dollars and 2 hours of my life. An example is the 2002 version of The Time Machine. As much as I love the 1960 film, it hasn't aged well, the special effects aren't that special by today's standards and its cautionary tale about nuclear war clearly reflects the era it was made in. I don't object to a remake that would do a better job capturing the H.G. Welles novel... but I DO object to the remake they gave us. The Eloi all look like Tiger Woods and speak perfect modern day English 800,000 years in the future, the head of the morlocks, the "Uber-Morlock" (yes that's his name and he's not a character in the book) looks like Marilyn Manson (and also speaks perfect English!), the time traveler is involved in cartoonish fight scenes and telepathic mind battles... the whole second half of the movie was an insult to anyone who read the original sci-fi classic.
I think the 1970 movie M*A*S*H (must type inconspicuously so Hollywood suits don't notice) could use an update as the originally is horribly dated and more of a commentary on the Vietnam War than a realistic look at the Korean War, but when people speculate on a remake, they talk about casting goofy "actors" like Will Ferrell instead of making a genuine dark comedy with biting satire. So I'll stay away from recommending a remake unless they find someone with capable hands that could do the material justice.
“You know from the trailers the movie is going to be terrible.”
You got it! That and films that aren’t made available for advance screenings have “EL SUCKO” written all over them.
Indiana Jones 4: I suspected it was going to blow when Sean Connery declined a cameo in it. Yep...part 5 should be a blast, huh?
Completely agree on Jack Nicholson over Heath Ledger!!! If Ledger hadn’t OD’d, he would have been just another actor in a movie, period. Actually, “The Dark Knight” as a whole is WAAYYYYYYY overrated IMHO. I’ll take the two Michael Keaton Batman’s over anything else that’s been done.
I’ll pass on The Great(est) Gatsby as well. Been there, done that.
M*A*S*H: The best thing Robert Altman ever did IMO. Love the movie, do not like the TV show at all.
deeeididdlideodoe
A young Lucille Ball appeared in a Stooges short, "Three Little Pigskins":
There was also one episode where all four of the "Stooges Greats" (Moses, Samuel and Jerry Howard and Larry Fine) were on screen at the same time.
But Jerry ("Curly") had had a stroke by that time and only did a cameo in the scene -- with a full head of hair! Sadly, this was also Curly's final screen appearance. He died January 18, 1952.
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