Fuck It, Let's Remake Everything
Obviously, there is some resistance to Hollywood's constant remaking of movies. I think this stems from the fact that the original movies are good, or at least hold a warm, golden place in our heavy, nostalgic hearts. And also that Hollywood's tendency is never to improve on the past, but simply to exploit it for profit. Well shut up, you guys! Stop complaining! Hollywood is obviously remaking movies at an exponential rate, so we might as well get on board and get really excited about it. Over-excited if you ask me. Check out these two items from this morning's Variety:
Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment are joining forces to turn the Dr. Seuss book "The Lorax" into a 3-D CG animated feature.
AWESOME! THIS IS THE BEST NEWS I HAVE EVER HEARD!
Though published in 1971, "The Lorax" has a timely "green" theme.
YEAH IT DOES! I LIKE CARING ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT BECAUSE IT'S TIMELY!
Also this news (via Variety):
Sony Pictures Classics is continuing its relationship with filmmaker Zhang Yimou, agreeing to distribute his planned remake of the Coen brothers' comedic thriller "Blood Simple" domestically and in several major foreign territories.The untitled redo will be set in a Chinese noodle shop in a dune-specked desert, rather than a bar in an unnamed Texas town, and revolve around the restaurant owner's plan to murder his adulterous wife and her lover.
AWESOME! IT IS TOO BAD THAT THERE IS NO WAY TO TRANSLATE THE ORIGINAL FILM'S DIALOG INTO CHINESE*, AND THEN TO OVERLAY THOSE TRANSLATIONS FOR PEOPLE TO READ...SOME KIND OF TITLING SYSTEM...MAYBE UNDERNEATH THE IMAGE, LIKE SUB THE IMAGE, SO THAT PEOPLE CAN JUST ENJOY THE ORIGINAL MOVIE WITHOUT HAVING TO REMAKE IT BECAUSE IT'S VERY GOOD. I DON'T KNOW, I'M JUST SPITBALLING HERE! JUST KIDDING! I AM SUPER INTO REMAKES NOW! AND IN PARTICULAR, I AM SUPER INTO THIS REMAKE, WHICH JUST SOUNDS GREAT. MAYBE WE CAN REMAKE BLOOD SIMPLE TWICE SOMEHOW. HOW DO YOU SAY "))><((" IN CHINESE?
What are we even doing here talking about this? Any time not spent delving through the past in order to destroy it for money is time wasted! TO THE GOONDOCKS!
*Admittedly, Hollywood has been pillaging foreign films for ideas and reproducing them as complete nonsense for dull-witted American audiences for years, so you can't really get mad at someone doing the same thing in reverse. Except that Blood Simple is great and also yes you can get mad.
Posted by Gabe at 9:30 AM in Remakes And Spinoffs
Tags: Blood Simple | C.R.E.A.M. | Coen Brothers | Dr. Seuss | Hollywood | The Lorax | Zhang Yimou
Ah, but what over-the-hill comedian whose popularity peaked in the late-90s can we get to play the Lorax?
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carrot top?
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Will Farrell, Jim Carrey, and Steve Carrell will have to get out their three-sided coin to flip.
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The studio's in negotiations with the internet's Litter Lout to play the Once-ler
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Mike Myers with a British accent.
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Other needless remake ideas:
The Third Man: this time it's set in post-war Baghdad instead of Vienna, and Adam Sandler plays the Joseph Cotton character, with Vince Vaughn as the smarmy British (now American) colonel. Sandler has gone to find his friend Harry Lime (played by the always great Keanu Reeves) who turns out to be a black marketeer (black market blue jeans instead of medical supplies this time). The love interest is played by Gwyneth Paltrow...
Citizen Kane: Matthew Mcconaughey in the role of a lifetime. Hollywood execs had no patience for the original plot of one man's slow decline after a lifetime of broken promises and lost loves, so they decided to make this one about a newspaperman with a bad leg who has to use his lucky cane to solve crimes. He's joined by his sidekick Rosebud (Emma Watson) as they out the criminal gangs in turn-of-the-century New York.
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Emma Watson would really shine in that role.
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Re: idea one -- the scene for the big Harry Lime reveal:
Adam Sandler: Oh woe is me I miss my friend Harry Lime I don't know who killed him but I miss him.
Keanu Reeves: [turns around a corner and is face-to-face with Holly Martins (whose name is now Sam)] Oops.
Adam Sandler: Hey wait aren't you dead.
Keanue Reeves: WHOA.
-- end scene --
Re: idea 2 - Make it a musical and we'll talk.
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Cheeseburger Picnic II
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Randy, ya cheesburger eatin' mafa!
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Unrelated: What is with all these sappy indie romcoms? First "It's not a love story, it's a story about love" and now it's all "it's a documentary/story about love" (vgum won't let me do strikethrough). On the topic of remaking movies unnecessarily, can we actually just stop making the same dumb indie movie "about love" casting male leads that alternate between Michael Cera and Guy Who Is Just Like Michael Cera But Different In Some Totally Insignificant Way, ))>((, and female leads that are insufferable almost across the board, because I happen to really like indie films, but I have a hard time getting behind a genre that refuses to stop backing itself into a corner and becoming a caricature of itself. Avada kedavra.
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Are you implying that
Zooey Deschanel is insufferable?Natalie Portman Kristen StewartScore = 8
Um, I'm not implying that she's NOT insufferable....
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I would like to nominate you Indie RomCom President, effective immediately. Now please, PLEASE kill them all.
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You guys may be angry, but just who is going to have to sit through all of these? Me. I am a bucket of popcorn.
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I'm on board with your disdain for Hollywood's boner re: Remakes, Gabe, but if anyone is capable of making a fantastic version of an already fantastic film, it's Zhang Yimou. I only hope he doesn't get all Ang Lee on us and decide to remake Dick Tracy.
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I see what you were doing with ))>
That being said, I'm actually waiting for them to remake Thelma & Louise...seriously wouldn't that make sense to do now? Jonas Bros soundtrack, starring Vanessa Hudgens and Miley Cyrus with rumors of Lindsay Lohan being rumored to actually be in the movie but turning it down to um...do nothing.
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That's it! I give up on the pooping forever thing.
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It is because the angle brackets in comments are parsed as HTML. Combining them with round brackets doesn't equate to a real tag, though, so everything just disappears.
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I'd go to that just to watch V-Hudge and Miley drive over a cliff.
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You had to open with this, huh? Good mornig to you too.
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You know what? I was thinking 'It's a Wonderful Life' would be a good candidate for a remake. I think Hollywood would really be able to...What? How many times? Oh Jesus Christ. Yeah, I know where the door is.
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I just read a treatment for the remake.
The Lorax is replaced by Greenzo.
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We need the help of that brave lady from Santa Cruz. Enslave Hollywood and free the East Coast. Either that or remake Goop.
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Cast Tom Arnold as the narrator and I'm in for 3
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I'm upping you because your pic is one of my beloved children books that I used to read.
I'm in the mood for nostalgia.
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are there any movies being made that aren't based on a book or a remake of something?
it hurts me.
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There's Paper Heart, in select theaters August 7th.
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I've been trying to find some information around that, they should really be doing more subversive viral marketing.
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Clearly Wilford Brimley should be the Lorax.
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Ideas have been adapted from one form to another and revisited in same-form since let's say the Greeks. Nearly always, the original doesn't suffer. Sometimes it's even improved on.
The original Marilyn Monroe looks no worse for my fun night front row at the Look What the Cat's Dragged Inn Cabaret Drag & Hot Dinner Drag Show Drag.
Shakespeare looks no worse after every mug in town's had a go. Look at that list sometime.
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Check out Mr. Ivy League over hear with his 'logic' and 'common sense'.
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yes that's right, I said 'over hear'. It just further illustrates how much more sophisticated Cooperman is compared to poor slovenly cretins like myself.
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I wish that was a real club.
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Let's listen to one of the best movie scores ever and then go ))><((...
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POOF. MAGIC! It worked.
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fuck it, let's remake everything and then put some fucking vampires in it.
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"Mannequin" remake, staring Me, Brains.
"Lost and alone, a young hussy with no future and hopefully a forgotten past (Lauren Conrad) loses herself in a sea of cheap blouses and quick bargains at the local mall. Spiraling out of control, the young lass gives herself totally to her dismal present, spending her days AND nights there…
But when the lights go down, the freaks come out...” *shot of mannequin (Me) blinking as Lauren walks by, pouting her bottom lip*
*shot of mannequin peaking around corner*
Lauren - "*GASP!* Woah, like, who are you?! You look a little ‘stiff’"
Me - "I'm Brains."
Lauren - "Why do they call you that?"
Me - "You'll find out..."
*Lauren rolls eyes, pouts bottom lip.*
“But when this lost lass meets her ‘stiff’ beau, the trouble really begins”
Lauren - "You need a makeover Brains."
Me - "More like a makeout"
“Sometimes, when you feel you'll never find yourself, someTHING finds you.”
Lauren - "Please don't leave me brains"
Me - "Am I made of wood"
This Fall, discover the MAN in Mannequin.
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well done.
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acceptance
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"Casablanca... It's like The Rock meets Con Air, only with vampires... Nic Cage is already on board..."
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Stay out of Malibu, Li Baos-Qi.
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yes, movies about board games. as if monopoly isn't painful enough in real life, now i have to pay to be bored by it in a theater.
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eff. that was supposed to be a reply to arielleann . . . .
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They're remaking Let The Right One In in English, which is so upsetting, because I just know they're gonna change the ending.
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Doesn't green eggs and ham already have a "green" theme?
it's ok, i was already leaving.
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