Keyword Archive:
Remake

True Grit (2010)

Thursday, June 16th, 2011

Them men wanted a decent burial, they should have got themselves killed in summer.

Remakes of John Wayne movies are a rare thing. Stagecoach was remade twice, but never with memorable results. The Sons of Katie Elder was kinda/sorta remade as the Mark Wahlberg film Four Brothers, but the modern-day gang parable was barely recognizable next to the source material.

True Grit

In True Grit, Jeff Bridges would be stepping into the iconic role that earned Wayne his Best Actor Oscar and the only character that I can recall that Wayne actually played twice. It was a ballsy move for an actor now permanently identified with “The Dude,” the memorable slacker from The Big Lebowski. Fortunately for Bridges, the Coen Brothers, also writer/directors for Lebowski, had the actor’s back.

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The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)

Friday, June 3rd, 2011

I want to apologize to you; it seems we got off to a bad start.

Combine a completely unnecessary remake of a 1950s science-fiction classic with a starring role for Keanu Reeves and you have a recipe for nothing to get excited about. In that respect, the 2008 version of The Day the Earth Stood Still does not disappoint. It unsuccessfully tries to hide its narrative emptiness behind a noisy CGI light show and half-hearted lip service to a ripped-from-the-headlines current-events subject.

The Day the Earth Stood Still

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3:10 to Yuma (2007)

Wednesday, February 6th, 2008

You’re conscience is sensitive, Dan. I don’t think it’s my favorite part of you.

Unlike the South, the western does seem to rise again. And again and again and again. The genre has been pronounced dead more often than Generalissimo Francisco Franco on Saturday Night Live, but they keep making them. And despite the tendency of the Horse Opera to endlessly recycle plots, this is one of the few explicit remakes I can recall, save for the odd TV movie of the week.

3:10 to Yuma, Russell Crowe, Christian Bale

3:10 to Yuma is a movie with its feet in two eras. (more…)

Flight of the Phoenix (2004)

Saturday, November 24th, 2007

The design is perfect. The only flaw is that we have to rely on you to fly it.

I didn’t think it was possible to do a bad imitation of Michael Bay without making it a deliberate parody, but this remake of the 1965 Jimmy Stewart classic manages to ape parts of Bay’s signature look while actually making Armageddon look like Citizen Kane in comparison.

Another worthless remake.

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The Dawn Patrol (1938)

Sunday, November 4th, 2007

Don’t worry. You’ll die soon enough.

1938 was a pretty good year for Errol Flynn, featuring two of the films for which he will always be remembered, the other being the Technicolor romp called The Adventures of Robin Hood. This remake of a pre-code Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., movie, however, is the better of the two films, requiring Flynn to do some real acting.

The Dawn Patrol

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I Think I Love My Wife (2007)

Tuesday, September 18th, 2007

Once you get married you only hang out with other married people. Why? ‘Cause no single person could stand to be around you.

I’ll be the first to admit that Chris Rock is not my cup of tea when it comes to stand up comics. He’s smart and he is funny, but there is something in his delivery and demeanor that I find off-putting for some reason. Needless to say, a new Chris Rock movie is not high on my list of “must see” pictures. Imagine my surprise when I found both his acting and directing to be among the best parts of this intelligent but deeply flawed comedy.

I Think I Love My Wife

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Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

Friday, August 17th, 2007

I’ve never expected metal ships.

Remakes are rarely a good idea. Remakes of classics are even less likely to be a good idea. They rarely improve on the original and more often, to be blunt, they suck. But up with it I’m willing to put if it means that, from time to time, we get a remake like this one, which takes everything that was good about the original and turns it around so it is relevant to the present.

Body Snatchers

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Flash Gordon (1980)

Wednesday, August 15th, 2007

Klytus, I’m bored.

This is the kind of movie that Ed Wood would have made if he’d ever had the budget. It has everything: bad writing, bad acting, bad special effects and bad music. Is it cheesy? There’s enough cheese on screen to keep every restaurant in France supplied with sauce for a year. Is it campy? It goes beyond camp. This is an entire Boy Scout Jamboree. Is it corny? Like Iowa, baby.

Flash Gordon

Okay, Mr. Smart Alecky Movie Reviewer Guy, stop beating around the bush. Did you actually like it?

Um… yeah.

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The Thin Red Line (1998)

Monday, July 30th, 2007

In this world, a man himself is nothing. And there ain’t no world but this one.

Terrence Malick’s first film as director in twenty years assembles various pieces of a great film into a mediocre one. The Thin Red Line is a meandering, obtuse rumination on the dehumanizing effects of war and will test the patience of even the most indulgent filmgoer. It runs close to three hours but probably only contains about two hours of story worth telling and not all of that feels like it comes from the same story.

The Thin Red Line

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The Departed (2006)

Friday, March 23rd, 2007

I don’t want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me.

If F-words were horses, Martin Scorcese’s The Departed would be a stampede. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Scorcese film without an intensive barrage of R-rated language and this is a prime example of the director in his natural environment, among cops and wise guys and navigating a morally ambiguous urban landscape.

The Departed

Scorcese has spent the last decade away from his natural milieu, possibly pursuing a level of artsy respectability that would earn him that long denied Best Director Oscar. That makes it someone ironic that he finally won the award with a lurid, violent but insightful crime film that played to his strengths.

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