Miscellaneous Movie Musings

[Not Afraid]

Originally Posted by mousepod

I
I remember being disgusted when the flammable band Great White had a minor MTV hit with a great Ian Hunter song....

UGH! I remember that awful cover! I was playing the original and a younger friend said "this is a Great White song". I felt old, but lucky.

[flippyshark]

Originally Posted by mousepod

A bad remake of a forgotten classic tends to create a negative feeling where there should be a blank slate. When friends are hanging out at my place, and I pull out a movie that I know they'll like, I don't want to have to explain that "it's much better than the one with Nicolas Cage - trust me..."

Well said, and the example you chose may stand as the definitive illustration of this frustrating trend. The unbelieavably crappy remake of The Wicker Man, if seen first, will certainly diminish if not utterly spoil one's prospects of appreciating the classic original. I tried to get a friend of mine to watch The Wicker Man after she had suffered through the Nicholas Cage nightmare and she just plain refused.

[Alex]

Well, to be fair, The Wicker Man isn't a good example because, IMO of course, it really wasn't that good to begin with.

I haven't seen the Cage one yet so I suspect your friend would have been better off seeing neither.

Has Psycho been at all diminished by Gus Van Sant? I would argue not.

[€uroMeinke]

Go Bruno Ganz

[tracilicious]

Watched Heaven Can Wait last night. Total guilty pleasure movie. I must say, that for a fluff movie, it was quite entertaining. And Mark Ruffalo is really cute.

[Gemini Cricket]

I think you meant 'Just Like Heaven'?

I agree Mark Ruffalo is very cute. I liked him in 'You Can Count on Me'.

[Scrooge McSam]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

I agree Mark Ruffalo is very cute. I liked him in 'You Can Count on Me'.

Did ya squall like a little girl for that last scene?

Yeah, me too.

[Gemini Cricket]

Originally Posted by Scrooge McSam

Did ya squall like a little girl for that last scene?

Yeah, me too.

I did. Laura Linney is tops in my book. Love her.

That whole movie hit home for me. I mean, every time I visit my older sister she looks at me and says, 'Get out.' Even after only 5 minutes or so...

[tracilicious]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

I think you meant 'Just Like Heaven'?

I agree Mark Ruffalo is very cute. I liked him in 'You Can Count on Me'.

Exactly! I haven't seen You Can Count on Me. I really liked him in 13 going on 30. He's adorable. I want to smell him.

[mousepod]

Don't know if you noticed €uro's post last night. The "bad Nic Cage movie" could also be "Wings of Desire".

As for Psycho - Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot remake (except for one telling shot) was an interesting excercise that happened to be a bad film. By siting Psycho and "The Godfather", you're talking about films that are already part of the general public's consciousness. That wasn't my point.

In film, the "art" and the story are almost intrinsically linked. When Brendan Fraser's "Bedazzled" was released, it tossed out Peter Cook's clever dialogue and retained the same basic plot. In that way, the remake "spoiled" the original in its artless telling of the same story.