Sequels, Remakes, and Reboots Part II: Remakes

There are people who believe that only the original version of something is a good version. That anything that follows is automatic trash. You'll find this with characters played by different actors, such as James Bond. A large number of people insist that the "original" James Bond, Sean Connery, is the only one worth watching. This thinking applies to songs, with some people going so far as to say that any musical artist that does a remake (they're actually called covers in musical terms) of a song sucks. And of course, it applies to movies, with people citing that the original version is always the best.


Yes, well, Sean Connery wasn't the original James Bond. Barry Nelson beat him to the part by 8 years.


You'd be hard pressed to find a musical artist who has been around for a while that didn't do a cover. Even the Beatles did a cover of Twist and Shout. After all, you can't be a Celine Dion fan if you don't like remakes, since pretty much every single album of hers is almost guaranteed to have a remake (or two or three) on it.


And yes, Virginia, some of the best versions of movies--indeed some of the best movies ever--are remakes.


I get that it's fashionable for Hollywood to do remakes. They truly seem to be on a kick of remaking 80s movies. I'll even go so far as to say that with all the 80s remakes going on over the last five or six years, I'm beginning to wonder if I'm reliving my teenage years. God, I hope not.


One of the most famous film noirs, the Bogart version of The Maltese Falcon, is actually the third version of that story. It was originally filmed in 1931 with Ricardo Cortez. It was filmed again as Satan Met A Lady in 1936 with Warren William and Bette Davis. But it was the third version in 1941 that gets remembered and loved. I haven't watched the 1936 version yet, but I have seen the 1931 version. It isn't bad and it is Pre-Code, so it's racier than the 1941 version, but it famously blows it in the ending. And none of the cast--not even Dwight Frye as Wilmer--match their 1941 counterparts.


Cecil B. DeMille and Alfred Hitchcock apparently both thought remakes had their place as they both remade earlier films of theirs in 1956. DeMille chose to remake his 1923 The Ten Commandments while Hitchcock remade his 1934 The Man Who Knew Too Much. There's plenty of debate about the Hitchcock films--both versions have their fans--but most people prefer the 56 version of The Ten Commandments.


Speaking of religious films that got a superior remake, it is worth mentioning the 1959 film that won more Academy Awards than any other, a record it held until it was tied in 1997 by Titanic. That film, Ben Hur, is probably the best argument you can make for good remakes. In fact, the 1950s is peppered with remakes that are either as good as what came before or just plain kick the original in the teeth: House of Wax, Miss Sadie Thompson, A Star Is Born, Hound of the Baskervilles, Dracula, The Curse of Frankenstein, and The Mummy are all pretty good examples.


"Okay, so they knew how to do good remakes in the 1950s", some of you may be grumbling. "They can't possibly do good remakes nowadays."


Actually, they can and do. I love the Rat Pack myself, but the George Clooney version of Ocean's 11 beats the Rat Pack version in almost every level. For one thing, it's more fun. And while it can be argued that the Rat Pack version has the better ending, that and Dean Martin singing "Ain't That a Kick In The Head" are about the only things the original has over the remake.


What about King Kong, the poster child for poorly thought out remakes? It is true that Dino De Laurentis unleashed a mind-numbingly awful remake of King Kong in 1976. In fact, it's pretty shocking how the special effects of the 1976 version are such an epic fail as compared to the 1933 original. I mean, they just look cheap. But, while Peter Jackson's 2005 version isn't better than the 1933 version--it's far too bloated and excessive for it's own good--it's actually a pretty good movie. It's certainly not as bad as the 1976 version. And if you could cut a good hour out of the movie, it would likely give the original a real run for the money.
Other good, recent remakes include 3:10 to Yuma and True Grit, both of which can be argued as being better than their previous versions. Certainly 3:10 to Yuma is better. True Grit is at least as good if not better than the Wayne version.



The most common (and absurd) argument I've heard regarding remakes is the age old question of "Why do they remake only good movies? Why don't they remake bad movies to make better versions?" First off, they do remake bad movies from time to time. 1953's Catwomen of the Moon was remade in 1958 as Missile to the Moon. 1982's My Bloody Valentine was remade in 2009 as My Bloody Valentine 3D.  That's just two such examples. Second, do you know what you get when you remake a bad movie? How about...a bad movie? Neither one of those remakes are what you could call an improvement on their originals.  Besides, do you really want a remake of The Terror of Tiny Town or Reefer Madness? I didn't think so.


Are there rotten remakes? Of course there are. Nobody is arguing that. 1988's The Blob and 1994's The Getaway are both pretty poor, just proving the adage that you don't remake Steve McQueen.
Are remakes necessary then becomes the next snooty question. Necessity is not the point nor should it be the question, however. The question is or at least should be, like any film, are they good, bad, or indifferent. As with almost any type of film--except porn, of course--you can find examples of all three. So a generalization of "all remakes are awful bastardizations of the original" is really pretty silly at the end of the day. The great ones or at least the good ones will stick around and probably outshine the original to the point that we don't recognize that they aren't the original and the bad ones will be flushed down the drain like most bad movies do.


I don't watch every remake. I still haven't watched the redo of Footloose and I seriously doubt I will. They can keep the slasher remakes, too, as I have no interest in them. I had no interest in the original slasher movies in the 1980s, so why would I be interested in their remakes?  But I'm not going to write off remakes entirely and some that are still coming have me interested, such as this year's Godzilla. So relax and remember, this is nothing new. More to the point, this can just as often be a good thing as bad.

3D CLASSICS COME TO BLU RAY

This month has seen the release of two classic 3D movies on 3D Blu Ray for the first time--and no, I don't mean AVATAR and THE AVENGERS (which came out last month anyway). Last week Universal released CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON in 3D as part of the UNIVERSAL MONSTERS Blu Ray set and this week Warner gave us Alfred Hitchcock's DIAL M FOR MURDER. I've only spot-checked the two discs--ok, I've watched half of DMFM already--but I'm impressed with what I've seen. This is what 3D should look like. Outside of a few titles like HUGO and THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN, most modern 3D movies aren't that impressive in terms of depth and/or effect shots. So if you think of THE AVENGERS as the ultimate 3D movie, you've seen nothing.

The 50s films were not shy about either depth or effect shots. This is not to say that those films were like their 80s counterparts throwing everything including the kitchen sink at the audience. They concentrated mostly on depth and keeping things behind the stereo window. However, when there was a gimmick shot, it was usually a memorable one. A perfect example of this is in DIAL M FOR MURDER.

For the better part of the first 45 minutes all of the action takes place behind the screen.  All this time we follow along as Ray Milland plots the murder of his wife, peering around lamps as if spying and being a co-conspirator. Then comes the movie's big moment when Anthony Dawson tries strangling Grace Kelly. Kelly desperately reaches out of the screen, almost as if imploring the audience for help. When she reaches it, it's a creepy and effective moment. We go from being in on the plot to being begged for help by the victim and not being able to do anything. It is, perhaps, the ultimate in audience manipulation and something completely lost in 2D showings.

Admittedly, DIAL M is far more subtle than CREATURE in terms of both depth and gimmick shots. But this does not make either film better or worse. CREATURE is a decent movie in it's own right and has an excellent use of 3D, especially in the underwater scenes, which are better than what JAWS 3D pulled off nearly 30 years later. The 3D really pops in this one, with fantastic levels of depth throughout and CREATURE even manages to be deeper than DIAL M. In fairness, Hitchcock confined his film to a Lomdon flat while director Jack Arnold has a jungle/water setting to play with. Arnold also uses more gimmick shots than Hitchcock. But, there's an important thing to bear in mind with Arnold's 3D films: (again) unlike their 80s counterparts, the gimmick shots related to the movie. For those who grew up seeing yo-yos and popcorn being tossed at the audience in FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3, the idea of 3D movies not just tossing any old thing out of the screen may seem like a weird idea, but it's the center of both of these releases. I mean, Jack Arnold decided that a primary 3D effect for CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON should be the Creature himself clutching and clawing at the audience. Who knew? Then again, most modern 3D movies don't bother much with gimmick shots themselves. Then again, all too many of the modern ones are converted from 2D.

 This Blu Ray marks the first time CREATURE has been released (officially)  on home video in 3D since MCA put out a rotten anaglyphic VHS in 1980. I admit to having loved watching that release for years, but after seeing the Blu Ray, I'm convinced I was on good drugs I didn't even know I was on for all those years. This is the way to see CREATURE, unless you happen to get a chance to see it in dual strip polarized in the theater sometime. I got to see it that way twice myself and it's quite a treat. But this is definitely the next best thing. As for DIAL M, this is the first time since the Japanese VHD Disc in the 1980s that Dial M has gotten a home 3D release. Both look great on 3D Blu Ray, though CREATURE has some vertical misalignment issues. Depending on things, some eyestrain may be had while watching CREATURE. But that's the way the film has always been. It's also worth noting that both of these releases are the first time on home video that either film has been shown in it's original 1:85 aspect ratio.

In both cases, the image detail is beautiful. I noticed for the first time the bruise marks on Grace Kelly's neck the day after the attack. Okay, it was make up to look like bruise marks, but the point is that detail was never noticed by me before. Similarly, details in the shirts Julia Adams wore in CREATURE were made more apparent. Of course, that's the beauty of Blu Ray to begin with--that details you normally wouldn't notice become apparent. Both films look just fine and are well worth getting.

In fact, that's the bottom line. If you have a 3D TV, you seriously need both of these releases. They are truly top of the line films and ones you want to show people to show off your 3D system. The only one I can think of that can compare to them is HUGO, point in fact. And both releases have the promise of future classic 3D movies being brought to Blu Ray. Warners has already announced HOUSE OF WAX and Universal seems to be working on IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE and REVENGE OF THE CREATURE. Now if Paramount would only correct their error and put HONDO out on 3D Blu Ray, all would be right with the world. Sort of. Kind of. Not really.

The Genuis of Steven Spielberg

I was flipping through channels the other night and stumbled on Schindler's List. It was the scene where Schindler and Stern are actually typing the list. I sat there and watched it for a good few minutest before flipping again--only because I have it on DVD and I'm one of those weird people who'd really rather watch a movie from the beginning. At any rate, the topic of today's blog was decided in those five minutes.

As mentioned before, Spielberg is one of my two favorite directors. He has, in fact, directed my two favorite movies of all time, and directed quite a few others that would make it into my top 50. He is also the guy whose movies ultimately made me want to make movies.

Now, I know a lot of guys say that and certainly a lot of guys want to be Spielberg. I won't cop to that, per say. In my case, Spielberg's making of Raiders of the Lost Ark and talking about how it was inspired by old time movie serials led to eventually watching old time movie serials which led me to making movie serials. But yes, there's a lot of guys who simply want to be Steven Spielberg. His movies have inspired as many imitators as Hitchcock's.

Let's take Raiders as an example. To this day, movies are imitating the adventures of Indiana Jones. Anyone seen The Mummy movies with Brendan Fraser? How about Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow? I was really interested in seeing that one when it was out a few years ago. The director, Kerry Conan, even said he was putting chapter breaks in the film and that it was pure, old fashioned serial adventure. Never mind the fact that the actors did the whole thing in front of green screens and the entire world was CGI. But I wanted to see it and gave it a shot. When it was done, I turned to my buddy and said, "it was okay, but it didn't have the wow factor of Raiders."

Come to it, there's only been one imitator of Raiders that ever really worked--Romancing The Stone. And that one is less an imitator and more of a romantic comedy adventure film than any of the others. Well, okay...the first Mummy movie worked to a decent extent, too. Never bothered with the sequels, though I may.

Jaws has been imitated to death as well. Again, even as late as this decade, there's shark attack movies. Most of them are done for TV now since people stopped being suckered into going to the movies for them. But they all make the same fatal mistakes: show the (fake looking) shark to death and just have a high body count. Spielberg's movie did neither which is why it remains a masterpiece.

But like I said earlier, Hitchock is still imitated and he's been dead for nearly 30 years. Disturbia is nothing more than a reworking of Rear Window. And while it was decent enough, Shia LaBeouf is no Jimmy Stewart. This, of course, proves what the average movie buff has known for years: Hollywood is totally out of ideas. But I digress. Back to Spielberg.

There are, of course, two sides to the Spielberg coin: Spielberg the spinner of fantasy and Spielberg the guy who likes to win Academy Awards. The earlier is the type of Spielberg I prefer. It's not that the latter doesn't make good movies--you'd be hard pressed to argue that Munich isn't a good movie--it's that the earlier has a style of movie that is infinitely rewatchable. Of his more serious works, the only one I really care to rewatch is Schindler's List, and that mostly because of the wonderful interaction between Liam Neeson and Ben Kingsley. Saving Private Ryan was extremely well done (and depressing), but I'm not exactly jumping up and down to put it in the DVD player. Ditto Munich.

The problem seems to be that older Spielberg has seem to forgotten that, as Rod Serling once pointed out, you can make as potent a point in fantasy as you can in serious drama and make it in a more entertaining manner. E.T. is perhaps the perfect example. E.T. is practically the template for later Spielberg films. It's also as powerful and well done as those later films, it's just that it's the story of a boy and his alien instead of some "realistic" drama. In fact, it's probably as powerful as film as Private Ryan--I defy anyone to not cry when E.T. dies (I still do and I've seen the film multiple times). But it works better than the later films because it creates a genuine sense of magic and wonder. It's unfortunate he felt the need to monkey with the film in 2002. The removal of the guns does nothing for the story. Thankfully the first version of the DVD had both versions on it.

1993 was a major turning point in the films of Steven Spielberg. That was the year he gave us both Jurassic Park and Schindler's List. JP is perhaps the last really big Spielberg thrill ride. It is on a par with Raiders and Jaws. Next to the 1933 King Kong, it is the best dinosaur movie ever. Like Jaws, it has an excellent cast and makes a point--the debate over cloning and evolution--amidst all it's suspense. And every frame of the movie works. The special effects are amazing. It really looks like the cast is right there with real dinosaurs. It does everything that Spielberg's best does and it does it better than even most of them. I ended up seeing JP in the theaters four times. Only a couple of 3-D movies share that.

Of course, after Schindler, Spielberg announced an intention to stick with more serious fare for the rest of his carreer. Thankfully, he has slowly started to go back to what made him great in the first place in the past couple of years. War of the Worlds proved he still had it even if it wasn't as thrilling as his earlier work. And while Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull wasn't as good as the original trilogy, it didn't completely disappoint me either. But I'd still like to see one more Jurassic Park type thrill ride out of him. I have no doubt that he can still do it.

One thing worth mentioning is that Hitch made essentially the same type of movie for nearly 50 years. And he never really complained about it and--except for a couple of late carreer missteps--never really lost his touch, either. Spielberg for a time was our generation's Hitchcock, a master of suspense and wonder. It would be nice to see him completely go back to being that again.