The encore channel is showing all three Freaky Friday movies.
While the original Disney movie was entertaining, it was a piece of fluff.
It didn’t deserve one remake let alone two.
What movies say y’all?
Psycho… What the hell were they thinking? A shot for shot remake only proves that sometimes lightening doesn’t strike twice.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Meaner bloodier… and still less creepy
Ocean’s Eleven
I personally think Ocean’s Eleven is an example of the kind of movie that absolutely did deserve to be remade. The original was a great idea; robbing several Las Vegas casinos at once is undeniably cool. And it was fun to watch, if simply because of who was in it, and the wonderful chemistry between them. And it was no doubt stylish and cool, absolutely oozing the time period. But it simply wasn’t a great film; the script was convoluted and tedious. And the mechanics of the heist – “We’ll turn off the electricity!” – was pretty damn unimaginative. A movie with promise that never delivered is exactly the kind of film that should be remade.
We can certainly argue over the merits of Soderbergh’s remake; I personally found it, while far from perfect, a very fun film, quite clever, and definitely an improvement on the original. But regardless of your opinion of the remake, I maintain that the original is exactly the type of film that should be remade.
Gotta agree with Anamorphic there. I forget who the Hollywood director who originally said this was… but his opinion was that if you must do a remake, don’t ever do it with a wildly successful film. Take a mediocre movie and do it better.
Your threshold for “mediocre” may be higher or lower than mine.
I can’t believe they made a remake of Planet of The Apes, put Rick Baker in charge of the makeup effects, created this visually awesome world, and then used Tim Burton as director, put Mark Wahlberg as the lead, and then tried to one-up the original movie’s shocking ending with a nonsensical “twist” at the APE-braham Lincoln Memorial. I mean yeesh.
This is why I have mixed feelings about the upcoming Flight of the Phoenix. The original (with James Stewart) is so damn good, and they even built and flew the Phoenix for the movie (no CGI back then.)
Guess I’ll have to rewatch the original, it’s been awhile. I just remember I liked it so saw no need to remake it other than profit. Temporary retraction till further viewing.
Let’s not forget that Jimmy Stewart flew bomber missions in WW II, so not only did you have a great actor in the role, but you had someone who’d been in a similar life and death-type situation! Whatever merits the current cast and crew of the remake may have, I doubt that any of them can match Stewart’s wartime experiences.
Frankly, I don’t see the need for them to remake The Longest Yard.
Why remake the Manchurian Candidate? I haven’t seen the second, but I don’t see how technology would add anything to the simple brainwashing idea of the first.
I saw the British remake about a soccer player in prison. I liked it better than the Burt Reynolds one.
Why the hell would anyone want to remake The Stepford Wives???
Get Carter and The Italian Job
These were two 1960’s* British crime movies. They both belonged in the 60’s. They were both very, very British. That’s what made them both distinctive and brilliant. Remaking them in Hollywood in the 2000 and 2003 respectively completely misses the point of the originals.
*For all nit pickers, Get Carter was released in 1971.
The remake of The Thomas Crown Affair {Pierce Brosnan and Renee Russo} was much better than the original. The remake of The Day Of The Jackal {I think it was just The Jackal} was not.
Me, I’m still putting money on Lucas, after he’s finished with his prequels, going back and remaking Star Wars, in line with his “original vision”: hell, after the hype has died down it’ll be nearly 30 years: just ripe to sell more toys. C’mon, ten bucks says he’ll do it.
For the life of me, I can only think of ONE reason anyone would take a masterpiece of a movie and try to improve on it.
Hubris. Sheer arrogance.
And if you’re going to remake Psycho, doing it shot for shot is NOT the way to make it happen.
It could be argued that *Texas Chainsaw Massacre * was a cheap little movie that could be improved by the big-budget treatment… but the original was a terrifying ordeal. If you can’t make it SCARIER, or at least equal the original, then you’re wasting your money. I’ve never understood why every idiot in Hollywood seems to think making horror movies is easy.
The original *Stepford Wives * was a horror story. The remakers sidestepped the horror issue by making the new one a comedy… and therefore proved that they did not in the least understand the point of the original. Hell, they even threw away logical consistency for the sake of some cheap jokes; they couldn’t decide if the Stepford Wives were brainwashed humans or cash-dispensing servant robots with sex organs.
Remaking Earth Vs. The Spider, though… what harm was there in that? Kind of a no-lose situation, if you ask me…
Well, Gena Rowland’s “Gloria” was a mighty mediocre film to begin with, and it wasn’t all that old. So, I can’t imagine why Sidney Lumet and Sharon Stone wanted to do a remake!
Not surprisingly, it was even lamer than the original.
Walking Tall. I’m rooting for the Rock to become an action star, but this was just bad.
I wasn’t talking about the British version, though. There’s a new one, starring Reynolds again, set to be released soon.
A much shorter thread would be “Movies with wholly justified remakes”. I’m unable to come up with one off the top of my head, nor can I think of any movies that cry out to be remade. I can think of novels with lousy film versions that might be worth doing another adaptation of, but that’s not really the same thing as remaking a movie.
The Maltese Falcon. It was made twice before the third, famous, good version with Humphrey Bogart.
Bravo. Mark Wahlberg is not exactly the next Michael Caine. What could be more symbolic than the fact that The Italian Job remake happened almost totally in Los Angeles?
And now I see that there’s an Italian Job II due out in 2006. I’m gonna go cry myself to sleep. 