I was a guest at somebody’s house, and the TV was on in the background, but I wasn’t watching it closely. But I know the movie “The Goodbye Girl”, and this sure looked like the good ol’ movie that I likedl. So I pay a bit more attention, and realize that the actors are not the same.
Then I start watching more closely, and as far as I can tell , it is an exact clone of the original movie. Nothing was changed–every line, every scene–it all seemed identical to what I remembered.
So what’s the point? Why not just re-release the original movie? Why spend millions of $ to do nothing new?
Many people have no interest in seeing a 20 year old movie. Especially young people. They don’t want to see it on TV so forget theaters entirely. It doesn’t matter how great the movie is. So almost all movies are viewed as having a very limited lifetime now.
(In the 1950-60s era, any old movie from the 1930s was valued for TV filler. Now even the great ones hardly see any airtime on “classic movie” basic cable channels.)
This is a very sad statement about the state of US “culture.”
If the script, etc. worked before, it’s gotta work again, right? Hahahaha. See the aforementioned “Psycho” example. Can’t even do a shot-for-shot remake well.
This is not new. There are films like “A Star is Born” that were remade many times before Babs got her hands on it.
The solution is just to write new and inventive stories instead. Hahahahahahah…
They did change one bit of “stage business”
When Marcia Mason locked Richard Dreyfus out of the apartment that first night, he had no choice but to run to the nearest phone booth.
But in 2004 why would Jeff Daniels go out in the rain, unless he oops dropped and broke his cell phone. That scene just made me go “oy!”
Neither actor was right for those parts. And the daughter - so wooden. Awful casting. Just hideous. I can understand remaking the movie, even without major updates (just pluggin in current prices for rent, groceries, etc) but at least get actors who understand the subtle comedy of Simon’s works.