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I don't particularly care for either of them. Though when I watched Mr. Jordan I did get a great anecdote from a coworker who was a personal friend of Rains (but one that isn't worth sharing because its funniness was mostly in my coworker's ability to tell a story).
I saw the Guinness version of The Ladykillers about two months after the Hanks version. I liked it overall though it wasn't a super effort from Guinness.
I saw it because of the Hanks remake, before then I don't know if I had heard of it and certainly hadn't been given any reason to give it priority.
Personally I love remakes and different films from the same source material. Even if the remake (or the original sucks). I view pretty much any movie as a learning opportunity as well as a chance to be entertained. Even if I'm not entertained I can think about why I wasn't. What works, what doesn't.
Filmmaking is collaborative and no matter how much you buy into auteur theory it is the result of dozens of people making hundreds of decisions. More than anything else, remakes and the like highlight those things.
I would love to see four directors (who somehow hadn't seen the original) each take separate stabs at The Godfather starting with the same script. How would they be different. Is the material foolproof or almost impossible. Did Coppola do it as well as it could be done or was it actually a pedestrian effort. What camera angles detract or augment. Different actors. All of it.
So while a remake isn't necessarily an addition to entertainment I think they're boons to film buffs.
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