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Okay, so that blog post title is a little broad. I’m sure there are many things I’m cranky about…the smelly guy on the train for example…the fact that people are taking Tony Abbott seriously in the upcoming federal election, another. But today, what really got my goat is the issue of remakes. Yep, remakes. Remakes of films. Good films, even.
You see, Hollywood seems to have lost its creativity. Either that or the writers have decided not to come back following their strike! We now have films being released based on children’s toys, Disneyland rides and retro television shows. We’re also looking at remakes of foreign films.
Why oh why can’t people just read subtitles, or if you really must, rent a dubbed version? Because people are essentially lazy. And that’s the truth. And Hollywood knows this. And so Hollywood is taking successful local films – particularly ones that have acquired international success – and turn them into Americanised monstrosities.
The most tragic thing about remaking foreign films, in my opinion, is that you’re taking away from the strength of the local film industry. The originals may remain strong internally or achieve a cult following post-Hollywood remake, the likelihood is that the originals will fall by the wayside, unable to compete with the bankrolled US feature…and some of us will never know the original ever existed.
While this may have been happening with Japanese horror films for some time now, Sweden is the most recent nation to have its works added to the list of must-remake films.
Stieg Larsson’s novel Man som hatar kvinnor (men who hate women), or as it has been titled in English, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, has already achieved significant international success as the first book in his Millennium Trilogy. It was turned into a film in 2009 under the direction of Dane Niels Arden Oplev and released in Scandinavia using its original title, albeit translated locally. It was not until a year, if not more, later that the film debut beyond the Nordic countries, where, in part due to the success of the novels, the film has received critical praise. It also reportedly made over $7 million in the US, not bad for a release limited to 202 theatres.
Why oh why, then, are they making a remake? Because, you see, if a foreign language film can do so well in America, just imagine how well an all-American version would do! Oh, and Daniel Craig has been cast in the role of Michael Blomkvist, but they’ll probably change his name to James, or something. And I can only imagine they’ll cast Kristen Stewart as Lisbeth Salander to capitalise on her vampiric success.
Another Swedish success and novel adaptation was Låt den rätte komma in, or Let the Right One In. The Swedish language adaptation directed by Tomas Alfredson was released in 2008 and again, received a positive critical reception, both at home and overseas. It has also received a swag of awards, including from film festivals within the United States. Again, though, a remake is in the works with Cloverfield director Matt Reeves apparently to direct. I’m guessing the reason they choose Reeves is because they want to emulate the cinematographic genius of the original film – which, from what I have seen and I’m too chicken to watch the whole film through is just stunning, though very Swedish, whatever that means – or something.
And although the English language version is yet to be released, they’ve already wrecked it. They’ve changed the title to Let Me In, which really defeats the purpose of the title at all. First, the title is based on the Morrissey song Let the Right One Slip In and the idea that you have to invite a vampire into your home in order for him to cross the threshold. Let Me In, as a title, does not convey the innocence and passivity that I think is essential to the understanding of the story as being both a romance and a horror at the same time. The reason they changed it – the original was apparently too long. They’ve also changed the children’s names from Oskar and Eli to Owen and Abby, not really sure what they think this achieves, other than to completely do away with the plot issues surrounding Eli’s ‘androgyny’ by giving the character an outright girl’s name (!). The removal of this quintessential plotline and the additional claim that the new version might be scarier shows me that the American film industry is interested in something other than film making as a means for storytelling, which may remain a luxury only for national, or as it were – foreign, cinema.
Again I ask why. But then really, as much as I’d like to care, I don’t care. I’m not going to win this argument. Let’s face it, no one’s listening. But as for me, I may see the remade Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but only if someone else pays for me to do so. I had little luck with the original Let the Right One In, so likely even less with the remade version. But I hear the original is awesome.
Immediately recognisable as the handiwork of Hayao Miyazaki, Ponyo on a Cliff is the glorious adventure, not unlike that of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale The Little Mermaid, of a ‘goldfish’ for want of a better explanation, who wants to be human, or more specifically, a five year old girl.
I watched the original Japanese language version of the film and can’t imagine how it would have translated in the Disney English re-release! The dialogue at times is incoherent, at least that which comes from Ponyo! But it’s also endearing cute and by the end of the film, even though at the beginning it’s not entirely clear where the plot will be going, you can’t help but be behind Ponyo in her wish to become and stay a little girl.
Ponyo is, in essence, a love story. But it’s a love story built on the innocence of two preschoolers. In short, Ponyo runs away from home and is rescued by Sosuke, a five year old boy who lives high on a cliff with his mother, Lisa. Ponyo’s father summons the spirits of the sea to return Ponyo to his care much to the disappointment of both Ponyo and Sosuke. Ponyo has fallen in love with Sosuke and by virtue of having licked his blood (Sosuke cut his finger during the rescue of Ponyo) and using her father’s magic she takes a human form, but this causes a huge imbalance in the world. Ponyo returns to Sosuke and a major storm and flood ensues during which Lisa leaves the children at home while she goes to check on the residents of the retirement home at which she works. When Sosuke and Ponyo awake, Lisa has not returned so the children go after her. The stress of the search for Lisa weakens Ponyo who returns to her fish form…only Sosuke’s love of Ponyo, human or fish, can save her.
It was with great anticipation that I purchased my tickets for an afternoon out at the cinema with Mister Emmet on Valentine’s Day. The poster for It’s Complicated and its accompanying previews painted the picture of a comedic romp through the sex lives of over 50s divorcees. And I like movies about the lives and times of the parent generation, who generally present as being wise, experienced and more human in their facing of life’s everyday challenges…at least in the movies.
I can do nothing but simply call this posters, these previews, misinformation.
It’s Complicated is, in fact, better described as a predictable and shallow journey through the lives of self obsessed divorced baby-boomer with too much time (read: money) to ponder the what-might-have-beens that the rest of us are too busy to bother with.
I, for one, found it difficult to empathise with, let alone feel any sympathy for, a middle-aged woman who, despite having a house half the size of Oprah’s, is in desperate need of expanding her already abundant kitchen and to capitalise on her water views. How she can possibly cope in Nigella Lawson’s television kitchen I have no idea! As for the rest of the house, I can only suggest that inspiration was taken from Good Housekeeping, or the Pottery Barn catalogue.
And for someone who is initially concerned by who, as an empty nester, she’s going to watch The Hills with, Ms Adler sees an awful lot of her three emotionally stunted offspring. And did anyone else notice that these children seem to only every be dressed in light, flowing pastels?
Add to this, the film is overly long and tedious. There was an idea in there but somewhere along the line it fell over and so the film is packed with detail that is unnecessary…like the plot device that s the future son-in-law, Harley. And it only took half the film to actually establish him as being a fiance rather than one of the picture perfect Adler spawn. Or there’s the whole bit about the spliff…seriously? These present as a couple of potentially humourous interludes that fall flat through predictability and overacting. There’s really no need for them other than to act as padding to what is otherwise a thin on the ground one trick pony.
Whatever about the performances of Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin, who really should be more than capable of doing a good job within the constraints presented to them. It’s really not a stretch for either of them. The curve ball is Steve Martin who is the real stand out here, despite there being something seriously wrong with the man’s facial features (too much botox perhaps). For someone who grew up in the Eighties it’s difficult to not see Martin with top billing in a romantic comedy, but here he’s not ‘the funny guy’. It’s his character, Adam the Architect, who delivers some of the most adult lines of dialogue in a film supposedly about being adults. In short, if I cared about anyone in this film I cared about Adam.
In summary, there were too many barriers to my enjoyment of this film. As a child of divorce I found the portrayal of the children bordering on offensive; the treatment of the ‘new’ wife was harsh and entirely negative; the conversations of Jane Adler’s gaggle of girl friends was contrived and immature; and I just don’t care about the moanings of the upper middle class, if not above, that seems to saturate the television drama cycle of late. I wish Hollywood would start delivering, stop treating me like an idiot and actually give me something complicated…but what am I saying, it is Hollywood.
Somewhere in the hinterland of my late teens I discovered the film Dogma.
As a young person brought up within the Catholic system and having by this stage developed my own sense of disenchantment, Dogma appealed to me not only as a lighthearted comedic way of passing time but in a more, spiritual if you will, way. Of course, the casting of Alan Rickman as the somewhat disaffected Metatron, the voice of God, also appealed. And it is from here I discovered director, writer and whatever else he lists on his resume, Kevin Smith.
1999 was probably a little late to have come to discover the [once] talent that is Kevin Smith, who can possibly be credited with bringing to the silver screen the genre of movies about you. By which I mean movies about the fatass loser who talks about comic books and somehow ends up getting the girl, who may not be stunning but is somehow normal. His first crack at that whip was Clerks, which is literally a film about a couple of guys working in a convenience store. With the discovery that, as Smith himself puts it, ‘this counts as a movie now’, Smith created a genre about normal people doing normal things and having the conversations that normal people have. Although highly scripted his characters tend to crap on about the same things you and your mates would after a few drinks, when we’re all equipped to solve the problems of the world only to wake up the next morning with no memory of the wonderous solutions we concocted the night before.
I’ve seen most of his films, but stopped short of Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Now, I’ve always been aware of Smith’s penchant for including extreme sexual references in his films for some time, and I am generally okay with accepting this when it’s spoken and not acted – call me a prude but it’s my personal opinion. For some reason Zack and Miri for me is the line in the sand, and granted it may also have something to do with the fact that it stars Seth Rogan of whom I am not really a fan. My gut feel about Zack and Miri was probably exacerbated by the donkey scene in Clerks II, which I did happily go along for convinced that, no, he couldn’t possibly go that far.
On Wednesday night last, Mr Smith did a show at Vicar Street in Dublin as part of his Q&A speaking tour. His talks, some of which are available on dvd, are known to be packed full of lengthy and expletive ridden stories of his life as a film and comic fanboy made good but are generally impressive tales. However. On this night I realised something. While I have grown up and moved on, Kevin Smith has not. Or at least the persona he puts forward at these events has not.
This of course, is not to say that there were not parts of the evening that I enjoyed, such as his relaying of the experience of directing 25 year veteran of this business of show, Bruce Willis during filming of A Couple of Dicks (due out next year), but even that story provided enough evidence that Smith truly is a fanboy dressed in director’s clothing. That said, I was impressed by his committment to his ‘art’, if you can call it that, as relayed by his stories of continual battles with the United States’ censors, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), whereby Smith has had to fight for a lesser rating on almost all of his features, including, unbelievably, his most tame, Jersey Girl for the inclusion of ‘frank’ dialogue.
Unfortunately, in between the stories, and there is no denying Smith is a brilliant story teller, Smith obsessively talks about sex, anal sex, anal sex with his wife and now, also, becoming a full-time yet functional smoker of dope. And it is here that I lose respect for the man and begin to wonder if he has, indeed, had his day.
Kevin Smith, I fear, has possibly become synonymous with Quentin Tarantino, in that they’re both still doing the same thing they were doing ten years ago. The problem is, while I’m not sure Tarantino has the capacity to move on as a film maker, I have a sneaky feeling that Smith is actually more intelligent and talented than he lets on…he’s just lazy. For this reason I will still be interested to see what Smith produces in the future, more from a perspective of the written and directed by combination as I think he has the capacity to create interesting, well formulated and well scripted works of realistic fiction. His upcoming projects include Red State, a horror movie inspired by Pastor Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church, which is known for hating just about everything and everyone including the gay community, most other religions including Christian variants, and Sweden. Apparently Red State has no redeeming characters, which has meant a struggle for finance, but is also what will set it apart from other films that Hollywood is currently bombarding us with. However, Red State is likely to sit on the back burner in preference of Hit Somebody, an ice hockey movie that might also tickle my own fancy as a fan of the overall sport.
You have to wonder what happens to a child whose parents are an internationally renowned rock star and a cover girl, who once dreamed of being a professional wrestler and who was better known, at least in the popular media, as Zowie Bowie. Fortunately for Duncan Jones (actually his birth name) he has not given into the temptations of an easy existence or celebrity for the sake of celebrity as with some other (in)famous offspring. Instead he has most recently been in the media not for being his father’s son, but rather for his directorial debut feature film Moon.
If you’re going to do some Googling the first thing you’ll notice about the IMDB listing for Moon is that there are two main characters, played by Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey. One of these is actually a voiced machine. The other makes for a very lonely and somewhat paranoid set. But that is the brilliance of this film. Moon is effectively a one man show with two lead roles, neither of which is played by Kevin Spacey. It relies on plot, dialogue and genuine empathy for characters, which is, unfortunately, something unique to films receiving a mainstream release, especially in the genre of science fiction, of late. Remembering that Moon was released in the same month as Michael Bay‘s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. But there are no grand explosions, shoot outs, bright colours and flashing lights or completely unbelievable casting choices keeping the Moon storyline moving along, and the $5 million budget is well invested, with sweeping panoramas of luna landscape making the moon itself a lead character within the story.
Rockwell is brilliant in his performance as Sam Bell, an astronaut sent to the moon to oversee a mining project run, almost completely, by machinery. In two weeks Sam is due to go home. The effort on Rockwell’s part can only truly be appreciated when taking into consideration that much of the time he was acting to imagined companions, voiced by a stagehand off camera or possibly realised with a ball on a stick. Sam’s only companion on the moon base is GERTY, an overly calm artificial intelligence voiced by Kevin Spacey and very much in the vein of HAL-9000, although modernised through the use of emoticons. But in all seriousness, the less you know about Moon before going to see it the better. Just go.
Oh, and the soundtrack is fantastic, contributing unobtrusively to what is going on on screen…but then the director is the son of Ziggy Stardust, so something must have rubbed off.
