BS: Remaking Classics

Subject: RE: BS: Remaking Classics
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Aug 04 - 11:44 AM

And Michael Caine was very good in the Muppet Christmas Carol. This story has of course been made and remade many times. By far the best ever is the version A Christmas Carol (its U.S. name--Scrooge in the UK) with Alastair Sim. There were earlier and later dramatic versions that don't hold up nearly as well. I did like the Albert Finney version of Scrooge as a musical. And the Muppet versons of things are always marvelous. It's a good actor who can pull off acting with puppets.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Remaking Classics
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 03 Aug 04 - 12:42 PM

"Outland" was in a way a re-make of "High Noon" and a darn good one. If someone can take an idea and re-write it that well, and cast it that brilliantly, I'm all for it.

"Last of the Mohicans"...Daniel Day Lewis!!! YUM!!!

You know, there are some actors I wouldn't mind seeing in just about anything...Day Lewis is one of them.

I know this is blasphemy, but I'd even go see a re-make of "Mockingbird" with Day Lewis in it.

..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: Remaking Classics
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 03 Aug 04 - 12:45 PM

You going to see the movie, Ellen? Or Day Lewis?

Looks like we need another thread. Gorgeous hunks I'd see in anything.. :-)

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Remaking Classics
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Aug 04 - 12:59 PM

. . . or nothing!

Subject: RE: BS: Remaking Classics
From: PoppaGator
Date: 03 Aug 04 - 02:26 PM

I saw the new "Manchurian Candidate" this past Saturday, and was *very* pleasantly surprised. It was much better than I had expected. The plot is just different enough from the well-known original that the audience can be surprised at various points, including the ending.

In general, the plot is much more highly detailed; we come to know more about the brainwashing procedures and the battlefield situation that began the whole deal, and we learn more things about more different characters.

Also, each of the major characters is even more well-acted than in the original, great as it was: Meryl Streep is an even more hateful mother-figure than Angela Lansbury, Liev [sp?] Schreiber easily trumps Lawrence Harvey, and Denzel (thanks as much to the script as to his talent, perhaps) shows us a much more fully-realized character then did Frank Sinatra.

Incidentally, I had watched about the last half of the orginal film just the previous evening on TV (Turner Classic Movies channel). A great movie, to be sure, and the inspiration for one of those rare remakes that is worthy of its predecessor.

Subject: RE: BS: Remaking Classics
From: KateG
Date: 03 Aug 04 - 03:01 PM

Ah, the fine line between a new interpretation and sacrilege. I can see the justification for the former, but I'm with Don Firth et. al. about anyone who touches Casablanca! (Yes, I'll take an number and get in line.)

Subject: RE: BS: Remaking Classics
From: DougR
Date: 03 Aug 04 - 04:20 PM

Didn't someone do a remake of Casablanca? It seems to me that it was, perhaps in the 1970's.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Remaking Classics
From: GUEST,TTCM
Date: 03 Aug 04 - 05:08 PM

Did anyone see the remake of Behind the Green Door? It was done in the early 80's and they were promoting safe sex, with prick rubbers, finger rubbers, tongue rubbers.

Subject: RE: BS: Remaking Classics
From: Cluin
Date: 04 Aug 04 - 04:00 AM

I thought the "Ocean's Eleven" remake was better than the original, but that's not saying much.

One they better not think about redoing is "The Man Who Would Be King".

Subject: RE: BS: Remaking Classics
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 04 Aug 04 - 04:28 AM

Jerry, actually I'm going to take your (and SRS's) advice, and now go back and re-read this thread re-casting Daniel Day Lewis into every part (well, the male ones at least).

Thanks for the fantasies!

..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: Remaking Classics
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 04 Aug 04 - 12:14 PM

You crack me up, Ellenpoly! I just watched Maltese Falcon. I can see Day Lewis in the Peter Lorre part... he wouldn't work well in the Sidney Greenstreet role as "the fat man" as they'd have to pad his beautiful abs..

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Remaking Classics
From: HuwG
Date: 05 Aug 04 - 01:48 PM

Here is a link to a trivia page for The Son of Ali Baba, with full "castle of my faddah" quote.

A friend in the computer graphic industry recently told me that there is lots of interest in remaking some of the huge biblical, medieval and napoleonic epics. After expanding to cater for blockbusters like The Return of the King, some studios and specialised CGI firms have lots of spare capacity. And, as my friend said, CGI sprites don't shout, "Ready when you are, Mr. De Mille".

Subject: RE: BS: Remaking Classics
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Aug 04 - 02:05 PM

Just about anyone could out-act Frank Sinatra, so the comparison of Sinatra to Washington is always going to come out in Washington's favor.

I actually haven't seen Daniel Day Lewis in that many roles, and I didn't see Last of the Mohicans for a lot of reasons (would contribute to major thread drift). I did read the book (one of the milder reasons not to see the movie. . .) He played Christy Brown in My Left Foot--what a job that was!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Remaking Classics
From: Micca
Date: 05 Aug 04 - 02:15 PM

If you like Day-Lewis's work see " The Unbearable lightness of being"! try Here

Subject: RE: BS: Remaking Classics
From: Nerd
Date: 06 Aug 04 - 12:30 AM

Another Kurosawa remake: Yojimbo became both A Fistful of Dollars and Last Man Standing.

Casablanca was remade into a TV series in the 1980s. David Soul ("Hutch" of Starsky & Hutch, or the dude from Salem's Lot) played Rick.

Many of Stephen King's works have been remade. Salem's Lot, The Shining, Carrie, etc. The TV version (remake) of The Shining was MUCH closer to the book, creepier in many ways than the big-screen version. It had Steven Weber (whom I like, but who is no Nicholson) in the main role. It's a very different experience from the Nicholson version, and makes MUCH more sense.

One thing I find amusing about some remakes: when they appropriate the author's name but don't use the Author's story. For example: Bram Stoker's Dracula, with Gary Oldman, based its plot on the idea that Mina Harker was the reincarnation of Dracula's wife from 500 years ago. This is nowhere to be found in Bram Stoker's novel, but it WAS in a previous TV movie, also called "Bram Stoker's Dracula," which featured Jack Palance as Dracula. Okay, so the Oldman film was a remake of a made-for TV remake. Even funnier, the idea of a woman in the present being a reincarnation of the Vampire's lover in the past originated in...Dark Shadows.

So the TV remake of Dracula borrowed a main idea from a TV show, and then the big-screen remake of that TV remake borrowed it from there. What I wonder is: did the screenwriters even READ Bram Stoker's original Dracula before making the film?

Also a good example: Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, in which Mowgli is a sexy 30 year old hunk in a loincloth!

I happen to be a Robin Hood fan. Robin Hood was made into a film so early that few people have actually seen any film that can be considered "original."   There are good remakes of this story, and bad remakes. Douglas Fairbanks was good. Errol Flynn was a great film. Patrick Bergin was in a reasonably good version, which came out the same year as Kevin Costner's movie. I disliked Costner's pretty intensely. There was also the 1950s Richard Greene TV series, which has started to come out on DVD.

Subject: RE: BS: Remaking Classics
From: DougR
Date: 06 Aug 04 - 01:28 AM

Jerry: you can see Daniel Day Lewis in the Peter Lorre role in the Malatese Falcon? Casablanca? Jeeze, guy, you need new glasses!

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Remaking Classics
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 06 Aug 04 - 06:08 AM

Daniel Day Lewis, is to my mind, the one of only a handful of actors I will watch anytime in anything. I bet some of you didn't even recognize him as Winona Rider's fiancee in "A Room with a View".

And I would have paid much much money to have seen his onstage "Hamlet" (unfortunately, he also lost his marbles during the production, claiming to have seen his own dead father as the ghost, poor baby.)

AND he had the good sense to marry into one of the premier theatre families in America!

(Sorry for gushing...time to rent "My Beautiful Laundrette" again.)

..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: Remaking Classics
From: Jeanie
Date: 06 Aug 04 - 06:55 AM

....Then there are the deliberately funny spoof "remakes" (or, rather, extracts of remakes). My particular favourites are Dawn French & Jennifer Saunders' versions of "The Sound of Music" and "Titanic", but the greatest masters of this have to be Victoria Wood and Julie Walters. Has anyone else seen her wonderful version of "Brief Encounter" (with guest appearance by Michael Parkinson as the northern stationmaster ?) and "A Christmas Carol" (with Derek Jacobi) and a superb spoof of all those Emma Thompson historical dramas: "Come, Clarissa, fetch me my writing mittens !" The trouble is, I can never, ever watch "Brief Encounter" again (one of my favourite films of all time) without now thinking of the Wood version: "It was such a long time since I had eaten a mince pie, I accidentally poked it straight into my eye."...Great stuff....

- jeanie

Subject: RE: BS: Remaking Classics
From: HuwG
Date: 06 Aug 04 - 10:37 AM

Dear Ellenopoly, I did indeed recognise Daniel Day-Lewis in A Room with a View, but he was Helena Bonham-Carter's screen fiance, not Winona Ryder's.

Incidentally, it was not Day-Lewis's performance in "Last of the Mohicans" which made it into a fair remake as far as I was concerned, but those of Maurice Roeves, Jodhi May and especially Wes Studi.

A remake over which my parents and I remain stubbornly divided: How green was my Valley. They maintain that the original, made in 1941, had more of the authentic author's dialog, better singing, and being in black and white, the coal dust shows up better; I hold with equal vehemence that it piles on the sentiment implausibly thick, and the accents don't ring true.

Subject: RE: BS: Remaking Classics
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 06 Aug 04 - 11:02 AM

Dear HuwG,

You are of course completely right about it being Bonham Carter, and not Rider (who was in "Age of Innocence). Sorry, I knew that, but I blame it on the heat!

..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: Remaking Classics
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Aug 04 - 03:28 PM

Nobody sings Dylan better than Dylan - when he's going good.

however I liked Manfred Mann doing Mighty Quinn better than the self portrait thing. on that album I didn't like his let it be me, as much as the classic everlys.

I can't think of anybody who does Springsteen better than the original.

sometimes its a score draw - like The Beatles and Little Richard doing Long Tall Sally

Subject: RE: BS: Remaking Classics
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Aug 04 - 01:34 PM

Years ago on one of the cable channels (probably A&E) there were a couple of seasons of a British sit-com called Two's Company with Elaine Stritch as a writer from Brooklyn, NY, living in London with a butler played by Donald Sinden. It was very funny (though I see it gets mixed reviews on IMDB). Somehow this idea was transmogrified (with the negative connotation in use here) into the sacharine and silly American program Three's Company. And I recall reading somewhere that a short-lived remake of that was attempted fairly recently.

SRS